Eclipse Viewing Ideas

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This coming Monday, August 21st there will be a solar eclipse starting at approximately 9 AM and ending by 11:45 AM.  In the Concord, CA area we will have the sun obscured 76.5%.  For those of you who are not heading north to join the mega traffic jam’s there are at least 3 ways to virtually observe the eclipse without going outside.

NOAA’s GOES-16 satellite will have a clear view of the moon’s shadow as it travels diagonally across the United States, from the Pacific Northwest through South Carolina.

NOAA will be sharing a variety of GOES-16 images and animations throughout the day, including:
  • The beginning of the eclipse on the West Coast
  • The path of the eclipse across the entire U.S.
  • The moon’s shadow as it passes beyond the U.S.
NOAA will also have images from the EPIC camera on board NOAA’s DSCOVR satellite. Sitting one million miles from Earth, between our planet and the sun, DSCOVR will offer its own unique perspective on the eclipse!

The above information can be found at the NOAA Satellite and Information Service website.

Another way of observing the solar eclipse is to use the BloomSky weather network.  BloomSky weather stations have wide angle camera’s pointed towards the sky to show weather conditions.  Likewise these same camera’s will be capturing the sun and should show how the sunlight becomes obscured during the eclipse.  While the cameras shows a single snapshot of the sky when you visit the the site it also builds a time lapse movie that can be downloaded after sunset local time.  BloomSky’s weather map locations can be found at the BloomSky weather map website.

The last way of “hearing” the solar eclipse would be to use your AM  radio.  You may have noticed you can hear distant AM broadcast station during the evening hours.  From the San Francisco Bay Area we can hear KNX in Los Angeles on 1070 KHz; KSL in Salt Lake City on 1160 KHz; KBOI in Boise on 670 KHz; KKOH in Reno on 780 KHz; KEX in Portland on 1190 KHz and KIRO in Seattle on 710 KHz to name just a few AM broadcast stations.  These are just a few of the stations South East and North of the Bay Area and may be heard when and if the ionosphere is changed during the eclipse.

Enjoy the United States Eclipse and don’t look directly at the SUN!