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I will admit I'm not someone who gets excited about celestial events. I wasn't thinking about today's eclipse and might have missed it completely if C hadn't come into the office with an empty cereal box looking for tape to make a pinhole camera.
But I heard someone on the radio telling a story about another eclipse and how their science teacher very excitedly told them to "go find a tree!" The leaves on trees would function as a whole collection of pinhole cameras, projecting hundreds--even thousands--of little eclipses onto the ground below.

Who knew?
But I heard someone on the radio telling a story about another eclipse and how their science teacher very excitedly told them to "go find a tree!" The leaves on trees would function as a whole collection of pinhole cameras, projecting hundreds--even thousands--of little eclipses onto the ground below.

Who knew?
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Date: 2017-08-21 09:35 pm (UTC)I did--having observed the effect long before on May 10, 1994 (as did Stephen Jay Gould: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/dinosaur.htm)
I was unable to snag any special glasses, but (after sneaking a couple furtive fraction-of-a-second glances through welding goggles over polarized sunglasses) I enjoyed the crescent shadow effect in the dappled shade of the locust trees at the Dayton Mall bus hub, conveyed by slightly grimy 40-watt sunlight.
(And then, of course, you have the free spirits who ain't gonna let no one, nohow, tell them what to do.)
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Date: 2017-08-22 12:35 am (UTC)Re: "free spirits"... I absolutely sensed what would be in that link before I clicked it. I need a whole new way to roll my eyes.
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Date: 2017-08-22 10:17 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2017-08-21 10:44 pm (UTC)I got a few snaps partially obstructed that resulted in some pretty funky eclipse shaped lens flares.
Bee slept.
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Date: 2017-08-22 12:32 am (UTC)Interesting side note: astronomy was the one course I dropped in university because I knew I'd fail it so spectacularly. ☺
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Date: 2017-08-22 04:25 am (UTC)I never took any Astronomy but it is definitely something I've had an interest in my whole life.
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Date: 2017-08-22 03:44 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2017-08-22 11:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-08-23 03:00 am (UTC)I'm not too far from the ocean (I'm in Halifax), but I don't get to the shore as often as I'd like.
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Date: 2017-08-23 01:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-08-23 07:19 pm (UTC)Same here. And it doesn't help that Halifax looks like it's surrounded by ocean, until you realize that it's largely the harbor and the Bedford Basin. (I have a quiet horror of the thought that sometimes tourists from landlocked places may see the harbor and form a terrible impression of "the ocean" based on it.)
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Date: 2017-08-24 12:23 pm (UTC)Coming down the hill into the downtown was pretty, though.
And I remember the first time I saw Peggy's Cove. Up to that point I'd never seen an ocean in my life. Even with the gift shop and the tourists (like me, ha) it was incredible.
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Date: 2017-08-25 04:17 am (UTC)That does help, in a way. *wry* Oh, the harbor. Although at least it's much improved in the last several years. (Even if, as my husband says, by the time they got the sewage treatment plant up and running it'd taken so long that the design no longer meets all of the current standards.)
Peggy's Cove is glorious. ^_^
My parents lived in a much less-populated cove until right before I was born, and I've always had a streak of sadness that I didn't get to grow up out there.
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Date: 2017-08-22 10:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-08-22 10:44 pm (UTC)My own experience was akin to messing around with a Photoshop layer (setting the multiply setting on a solid black layer and lowering the opacity to 75%). It darkened considerably indoors, as if dusk had fallen. Not too impressive. At least I can still say that I saw the first coast-to-coast eclipse in 100 years.
I listened to the StarTalk episode about the eclipse, and the guest said that if eclipse glasses aren't available, the next best thing are welding glasses. But doing a search on them pulls up a few sources that say they might not be safe. Not that I'd feel safe staring at any part of the sun, even with protection; it's that overly cautious part of me.
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Date: 2017-08-22 11:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-08-24 10:30 pm (UTC)(That said, I mean to take no chances in 2024; I later learned that my brother and sister-in-law sprang for the authorized glasses, including spares for their guests.)
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