Can this be true Ele? I read that this will be the FIRST total eclipse that America will see since the country was born. Now I know there have been partial eclipse's before but is this really the first one that will be TOTAL? Thank you for your reply and Happy Saturday. There will be a band of the country that will see 100% of it and then depending upon your location it will diminish. I think where we're located we will see 60% of it or something like that. Of course if it's cloudy the effect will be impacted. Sounds kinda exciting though.
I read that this will be the FIRST TOTAL ECLIPSE since America was born bh. I know there have been partial eclipse's but is this really the first TOTAL one Americans will witness. Not all of America will see 100% of it. Different areas will see different percentages. Thank you for your reply! :)
I think it's cool... and I am dead jealous that there will be one in America... My work colleague/sorta boss is going to America with her family to see it... sooooo jealous
I saw a map showing the band of the eclipse that will be 100% viewable across America. We're south of it so we will see a lower percentage...something like 60% I believe. I hope it isn't a cloudy day because that will diminish the effect. I'm kinda excited. It is supposedly the FIRST total eclipse over America since the country was born. That is staggering! It is a once-in-a-lifetime event...not even once since America has been here for quite a few lifetimes! Thank you for your reply Addb! :)
It's certainly an impressive spectacle although over very rapidly. I can't recall the year one was visible from Southern England - 1998? Something like that. Anyway my girlfriend and I watched it from a vantage-point on the coast (Portland Bill for those who know the area). There we were looking out to sea, and the Moon's shadow was a dark bank that raced along the water. A friend said he saw it from a point giving a view of the white chalk cliffs further along the coast, and they were lit with a lovely pearly light.
From an everyday point of view a total solar eclipse is a natural event you are lucky to witness even once in your life, but not significant otherwise. For the astronomer it give a fleeting chance to obtain images of the Sun's atmosphere, to add to out knowledge of it.
I remember a photograph published in the newspapers taken at an eclipse maximum by a solar telescope in Mongolia, clearly showing the magnetic field lines traced by charged particles in the star's atmosphere glowing against the dark background of Space beyond. The first and most obvious significance is that it gave the alignment relative to us, of the Sun's magnetic axis; but it was also a lovely image in itself. As the Mongolian astronomer said, it revealed the eclipse as a thing of beauty as well as scientific interest.
Interesting that some quote a claim that total eclipses have never been seen from North America - and confuse the modern nation with its home continent into the bargain - whilst others find references to recorded ones. I wonder who originated the former claim, and why, or was it just over-enthusiastic publicity?
Element 99 