this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2024
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Science Memes

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once in a lifetime (mander.xyz)
submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 48 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (3 children)

The clouds cleared for me for about 10-15 seconds during totality. Long enough to get a glimpse and some cool pictures. Then, about 5min after totality, the clouds completely cleared out. Thanks mother nature.

Worst part was finding out that somehow the massive fucking fatass cloud that blocked the sun was somehow localized to my neighborhood, because everyone else in the city seemed to be able to view totality in it's entirety, despite being cloudy until just after totality.

I guess the good news is that, in this day and age, it's not truly once in a lifetime, you just have to travel. Admittedly that's expensive, but you can do it.

Edit: here's a cool pic I managed to get in spite of the cloudy bullshit. Sorry for the low res, it's cropped and was taken with my phone's 10x optical zoom camera.

Edit 2: I think the thing I like the most about the pictures I managed to get are the solar flares. Everyone likes posting pictures that have that iconic diamond glare, but imo seeing the solar flares is what makes it really cool. Normally the sun is too bright to see them. Even crazier to think that the earth could probably fit into those tiny red wisps.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Thats a cool picture. All I got was clouds...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

I hope you get a chance to see it again at some point, even if it means traveling halfway around the globe. Tbh I don't think it'd have quite the same effect as it does when it happens at home (all of the daytime sounds I'm used to completely stopped during totality, I'm not sure I would have noticed that elsewhere), but it was really cool and worth going outside and staring at clouds for 30min hoping to get a glimpse of it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

It's likely you got the cool pic because of the clouds. I got a good pic of a partial eclipse in 2017 because of the clouds. When clouds were in the way, I could get a good pic. Without the clouds it was garbage.

This year I saw totality with clear skies and couldn't get a good pic of partial or total using the same camera.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Huh, I couldn't see it unless the clouds moved out of the way. It got really dark during totality, dark enough that my camera's shutter speed was fairly low (it was around 1/125s with an iso of 50).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Several dozen earths could fit inside each of those wisps, the sun could fit something like 10k earths in it

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The image used for the eclipse in this reminded me of the show Heroes

Such a great show that fell off a cliff after the first season

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Wasn't it supposed to be an anthology series, where each season was a new cast? But then they were like "hey everyone loves these characters! Quick make up some stuff so they all have to stick around." Then we got weird shit like that character who has a bunch of twins or something, and psycho serial killer Syler joins the team.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Oh really? I didn't realise that was the case!

I think the biggest thing I remember killing it was that there was a writers strike halfway through the 2nd season and instead of waiting until the end of the strike, the show runners slapped together a shit ending for the season and then it never really recovered

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

The writer's strike definitely killed it

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

It moved from more a spooky sci-fi to a drama that killed the interesting new character every episode. That's gotta be one of the most disappointing series after the expectations set from the first season.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Hollywood must really suck at business if they can't keep their essential workers from going on strike every decade or two and taking down a bunch of good shows when they do. Seems like it would be a lot cheaper to just, you know, pay them.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Why did nobody give a fuck about the 2023 eclipse?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago

2023 was an annular eclipse not a total eclipse. Very different experiences for the viewer.

https://www.space.com/difference-between-total-solar-eclipse-and-annular-solar-eclipse

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago (2 children)

The annular one over north America? Because it was annular. While a cool event it is really a specific kind of partial eclipse. Totality is incomparable to even a 99% partial eclipse. I heard it described as the difference between mostly dead VS dead and recently I've seen the xkcd comic that does a decent job conveying the difference too.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I didn't get it... What is 91% speciality

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

If you didn't know, you'd expect a 91% eclipse to almost look like a full eclipse. (I think his idea was you got close enough that it was over 90%.) But the sun is so bright that it still looks like day at 91%. You might not even realize there is an eclipse unless you looked at it with glasses.

When I saw it two days ago, even at 99% everything still looked normal. It was only a tiny bit darker outside. You still needed to use glasses to see that an eclipse was happening.

When it hit 100% it was like lights being turned out in a room. In place of the sun was a giant black disk with a multicolored glow around it and a bright red spot (solar flare was happening at the time).

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

Thank you

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

It's like hearing vs. seeing fireworks

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

2017 had a total solar eclipse in the US in the southeast. People did care about it, but it wasn't as big of a deal as this one I don't think. I think part of the reason is people were made aware of how awesome (literal meaning) the event is in 2017 and this was almost perfectly centered across the US so accessible to almost everyone if they really want to.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The clouds may have even made it look more dramatic.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Yeah - it was awesome from my yard!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

You have another shot in 20 years in the us

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

And you have many more if you're willing to travel. This one was "once in a lifetime" because it was right through the middle of the US, so accessible to a ton of people, and also there was a comet that may have been visible at the same time. There was another eclipse just a few years ago in the SE US. Clearly not "once in a lifetime" though it is fairly uncommon and very special.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

I spent the week leading up to the eclipse looking at weather forecasts trying to give us the best shot of clear skies. When we got in the car Monday we still had to drive around a bit to get out from under the clouds. Ended up on some dirt road in NW OH in the middle of nowhere under a small patch of blue sky

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Same as it ever was

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Same as it ever was