Tag Archives: 2017Eclipse

Across the Universe: Total eclipse of the soul

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This entry is part 182 of 186 in the series Across the Universe

This column first ran in The Tablet in August 2017. Hard to believe it’s been a year since the solar eclipse… August 21, 2017, marked the first total solar eclipse visible in the continental US in a generation (since 1979). Everyone in America caught eclipse fever. “A total eclipse is a spectacular event,” or so I was told. I’d never seen one myself. The last time I tried to observe an eclipse, the air turned so cold that a rain cloud formed overhead during totality. But even then I recall that the Moon’s shadow spooked the local birds into thinking it was nightfall; and I remember my surroundings looking ominously strange. And so I accepted an invitation from Saints Peter and Paul’s Catholic Church in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, where the totality had its longest duration – two minutes, forty one seconds. A town of 30,000 souls, the residents there prepared for another 100,000 astro-tourists as if they were expecting a natural … Continue reading →

On the immensity of space

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The Total Solar Eclipse of August 21, 2017 – fly along with the shadow! from Eclipse2017.org on Vimeo. Not quite two months ago I spent a late morning and early afternoon watching the moon slide across the sun, turning midday Philadelphia into twilight and back again. I stashed the eclipse filters for the occasional look at the sun, and dove into the semester. But each time I head out for a late evening walk and see the moon hanging over the neighborhood school’s field, I think about it coming between the earth and the sun. I tend to think of the moon and sun as large objects ponderously processing through space, from my perspective taking ten or a dozen hours to creak ’round the sky. Their movements mark out days, months and years, not so much minutes and seconds. So I was struck on the animations of the August 2017 eclipse by how fast the moon’s shadow moved across the … Continue reading →

The Great KENTUCKY Eclipse of August 21, 2017: A Photography Student puts his Skills to Work

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In September Dang Nguyen, a student at my college (Jefferson Community & Technical College in Louisville, Kentucky), in response to Tim Dowling’s guest post, dropped me a note about his experience with the August eclipse.  Dang took a physics class from me a while back, and is currently a student in Jefferson’s Communication Arts Technology program (a very cool program—their students win awards on a regular basis), studying photography.  He sent me some excellent pictures, and a bit of time-lapse video.  I, of course, asked if I could share them on this blog, and he agreed. The Nguyen family observed the eclipse from Hopkinsville, Kentucky, and Dang told me that the most memorable moment for him was when the Sun was revealed after totality.  “It is bright but not bright enough so I could not look at it with my naked eyes,” he said, “and my eyes’ reaction to it was very strange.  It’s unlike anything I saw before!  I don’t … Continue reading →

A Kentucky Perspective on the 2017 Great American Eclipse

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I am pleased to have a guest blogger this week: Timothy Dowling, who is giving us his perspective on the August 21, 2017 eclipse as seen from Hopkinsville, Kentucky.  He is a professor at the University of Louisville in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. His area of research is planetary atmospheric dynamics.  He and his students analyze Voyager, Galileo, Cassini and Hubble Space Telescope data of the gas giants. Dowling is the lead author of the EPIC atmospheric model, which is used by NASA and researchers around the world to model the weather on Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.  He has appeared in science documentaries about planetary weather on the National Geographic, Discovery and History Channels.  He is married to Prof. Beth Bradley of the UofL Mathematics Department.  They have two daughters, and are parishioners of St. Michael Catholic Church in Louisville.  Prof. Dowling and Vatican Observatory Director Br. Guy Consolmagno have a poster presentation at the American Astronomical … Continue reading →

Experiencing God In Totality: Reflections On How The Solar Eclipse Stirred Religious Experience.

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The other day, I called a good friend of mine with some “priest business.” The call had nothing to do with astronomy or the eclipse, but the first words out of Brian’s mouth were, “James! I was in totality!!” The statement surprised me on two levels. One, I didn’t know he was going on a road trip, and, two, he really isn’t into astronomy. It turns out that Brian had a “happy accident,” to quote Bob Ross, having planned a trip to Lincoln, Nebraska earlier this year to visit some of his classmates from seminary. When he began to get things ready to leave on his trip, it dawned on him that the dates of his visit coincided with the solar eclipse. When I asked Brian what he thought of the eclipse, I was equally surprised at his response, telling me that it was, for him, a religious experience. Now, some of you may wonder why it would be out … Continue reading →

The Great KENTUCKY Eclipse of August 21, 2017: Under Cerulean Skies

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Hopkinsville, Kentucky billed itself as Eclipseville—it was the closest town of any size to the “point of greatest eclipse”.  And on Monday, August 21 it was Eclipseville indeed. In the later afternoon of Sunday, August 20, I was putting together my last post prior to eclipse day, and wondering whether the weather would be OK, because the forecasts were mixed.  I got the post up on The Catholic Astronomer, and then my wife Tina and I went for a walk around central Hopkinsville to get some exercise in advance of Br. Guy’s talk at Sts. Peter & Paul church there.  (If you are visiting The Catholic Astronomer for the first time, Br. Guy Consolmagno is Director of the Vatican Observatory, and The Catholic Astronomer’s Blogger-in-Chief.) The program at Sts. Peter & Paul began with introductory remarks by Fr. Richard Meredith, who expounded upon the words of Psalm 19: The heavens declare the glory of God; the firmament proclaims the works of … Continue reading →

In the Sky This Week – August 22, 2017

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This entry is part 28 of 113 in the series In the Sky This Week

Sirius, the “Dog Star,” accompanies Venus low in the eastern predawn sky. Jupiter sets shortly after dusk and will vanish from view entirely in a early September. Saturn is high in the southern sky, and with the planet’s northern hemisphere tilted towards us at about 26°, Saturn is just a spectacular observing target. The Moon, fresh from the eclipse, will be in conjunction with Jupiter in the west at dusk on August 24th and 25th. The Moon will be a waxing crescent in the west at dusk, growing larger each evening until it is at first quarter on August 28th; the later part of this week will be excellent nights for star parties. Sirius, the brightest star in Earth’s sky, is a binary star system about 8.6 light years away. Sirius A is a bright and hot main sequence star, with a faint white dwarf companion: Sirius B. Sirius A is class A0 star about twice the mass of the … Continue reading →

The Great KENTUCKY Eclipse of August 21, 2017: Just a few Tidbits for Now

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The weather in Hopkinsville, Kentucky for yesterday’s eclipse was perfect.  I will have a full post for The Catholic Astronomer regarding Vatican-Observatory-related Hopkinsville eclipse stuff, but not today; it will take time to write that all up and to assemble all the pictures.  In the meantime, here are a few tidbits to tide things over until the full post is written. Kentucky’s governor Matt Bevin was in the area, and was tweeting during the eclipse… …and thanks to that tweeting I have this nice photo of totality: The photo Bevin tweeted captures something of what we saw during totality (I say “something” because a photo does not do justice to the real thing).  The sun’s corona struck me as having a “three-pointed” shape, which does appear in this photo.  However, that shape seemed both larger and more striking in person than in this photo, probably because the human eye is better with slight variations in brightness than is a camera, … Continue reading →

From Eclipse Hangover to Eclipse Bliss! Enjoying The Saint Joseph Parish Eclipse Party.

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I must admit that I was feeling a little “eclipse hangover” this morning. After interviews, questions, and more questions, my morning walk was dominated by two thoughts: I hope these clouds break and I really wouldn’t mind if nobody asked me about eclipses today! In the end, God provided both beautiful weather and a rejuvenated spirit as many of my parishioners came out for our solar eclipse party! Below are some of the pics I took of our event. My favorite pictures are of the shadows on the sidewalk. I love how one of the effects of a solar eclipse is seeing the event projected on the ground through the shadows of leaves. I’ll let one of our more scientific types explain the science behind it. In the best homemade viewing device category, I would have to say we had a tie between a shoe box turned into an eclipse projector and someone who watched the event through seven holes on her Ritz Cracker. … Continue reading →

Unexpected eclipses

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“Aunt Chel,” called my youngest niece as she bounded through the front door of my dad’s house, “it looks funny outside.” I got up and went to check. I agreed, something was off. The sky was dimmer than it should be and an odd color, not the desert blue I expected late on a Sunday afternoon, but tinged green. Thunderstorm incoming? No, not a cloud in the sky. And I’m in the desert. Right. Fire? This is more of a worry, there is only one road out from my dad’s small farm. We don’t smell smoke, but still, I’m uneasy. And then there are the trees….something is just not right. We go back inside to check if there is anything on the Cal Fire site about nearby fires. My dad and sister-in-law have worried looks on their faces as I describe the sky, will we need to evacuate? As I’m opening up my laptop , my stepmother mentions in passing … Continue reading →

The Great KENTUCKY Eclipse of August 21, 2017: Will the Weather Hold?

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For the past week you have been seeing lots of posts about tomorrow’s eclipse and about Hopkinsville, Kentucky, the town at the point of greatest eclipse (or, to be precise, near that point): Click here for Monday’s post on the eclipse. Click here for Wednesday’s. Click here for Friday’s. Click here for Saturday’s. Hopkinsville is also the place that Vatican Observatory Director Br. Guy Consolmagno is visiting for the eclipse. Of course, not everyone can make it to south-western Kentucky to see this eclipse. If you are unable to make it into the path of totality, you might be able to see totality “virtually”, because Hopkinsville has a live camera mounted up high to give a continuous view of the area. Check it out below: Of course, there will not be much to see of this eclipse if the weather is not good. As can be seen from the Monday-Saturday posts, the forecast for the eclipse has gone this way and … Continue reading →

The Great KENTUCKY Eclipse of August 21, 2017: Reading the Signs

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Two days from the eclipse and I am in Hopkinsville. Anyone passing through, even if they did not know that there was an eclipse here, would know that a Big Event is taking place. The signs are everywhere. Some of those signs are the busy-ness of landowners along Kentucky State Highway 91 into town. The path traced by the moon’s shadow will move toward the South-East into Hopkinsville, roughly following KY-91. While driving KY-91 into town earlier today, my wife and I saw lots of farms preparing for the influx of people—some setting up to welcome visitors (“Eclipse parking $50” near the point of greatest eclipse), some seeking to keep visitors from tromping all over their crops (“POSTED: No Trespassing. Private Property.”) Another clear sign of a Big Event are all the streets that are closed off, and the many tents and vendors set up, right in central Hopkinsville. There are also a lot of actual signs pertaining to the … Continue reading →