Solar Eclipses

I had been really excited to know that there would be a solar eclipse Sunday...but became somewhat less excited when I found out that it won't be visible to me in the Pacific Northwest. Dangit. However, if you're in eastern America, south Europe, or Africa, you're probably in luck.

In my disappointment I decided to check out where the solar eclipses should occur in the next 5,000 years, but was appeased by what I found by 2017 and looked no further. First of all, I found out about a partial eclipse I will likely see almost a year from now on October 23rd, 2014. Even more happily, there will be a total solar eclipse on August 21st, 2017. This one will not literally be visible from my backyard, but in terms of travel it's almost in my backyard. Assuming I'm still living in Portland then, I'll only have to drive a few hours to see it.

The hard bit about seeing a solar eclipse will be reminding myself not to look directly at the sun, unless I have special eye wear. I may use the pinhole method for viewing the eclipse, which is what I did on June 10th, 2002 for a partial solar eclipse.

And now, just for kicks, and because I dug it out (ok, not much digging was involved, it was easy to find) to check the date, here's what I wrote in my diary that day about the eclipse. I won't spare you my horrid spelling, but I will skip over the non eclipse related stuff, including my major crush on Aximili from the Animorphs book series.

June 10th, 2002 Monday

There's going to be a partel solar eclips today!

It will start at 5:00pm, an hour from now.

Later

I made two pin-hole cameras to watch the solar-eclips through. I'm going to see multipul imiges because I've made more than one hole in them. I've made one with elunemin foil, & one with white paper.

I can't wait for the solar eclips. I wish it were a total solar eclips. I plan to take pictures of the imiges I get. It starts in just under 40 minuets! It'll last just 2 hours. 

Anything to do with space amazes me.

Later

The Partial Solar Eclips was so beatiful!

I took lot's of pictures of it's reflection in some water, although none of those pictures came out. It was the pin-hole pictures that did come out.

Mom says that she once took a picture of a partial solar eclips reflected in a swimming pool, but but she lost them. 

Back to today...

Maybe I need to find other excuses to share excerpts from my old diaries. For some odd reason I find it hilarious to type out my horrid spelling mistakes from when I was 13. It was also amusing to read that one hot dream (actually not so hot in retrospect) I had about Aximili in which we were talking music.

In other news, I probably had the best Samhain ever yesterday. The post about that will go up tomorrow though, because I just felt like writing the solar eclipse one first.

Partial Solar Eclipse