Partial Solar Eclipse today, 2014/10/23

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sj-roc
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Turns out Vancouver will be one of the best places in the world (among urban, populated areas) to see today's partial solar eclipse — or at least it would be if it weren't for the wretched weather forecast (and already happening) for its duration, from 1:32pm to 4:16pm, with maximum eclipse — approx 56% of the sun's area covered — at 2:57pm (all times PDT).

Too bad about the weather, as the next one visible from Vancouver won't happen for nearly another three years (2017/08/21). Or maybe it's a good thing — less risk of eye damage.

A slate.com article on the eclipse: http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronom ... ct_23.html
Sports can be a peculiar thing. When partaking in fiction, like a book or movie, we adopt a "Willing Suspension of Disbelief" for enjoyment's sake. There's a similar force at work in sports: "Willing Suspension of Rationality". If you doubt this, listen to any conversation between rival team fans. You even see it among fans of the same team. Fans argue over who's the better QB or goalie, and selectively cite stats that support their views while ignoring those that don't.
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sj-roc
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With the Broncos hosting the Chargers tonight, their former receiver and current radio colour man Ed McCaffrey was prompted to tweet: "Nice of the sun to wear orange tonight in #BroncosCountry!"



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Sports can be a peculiar thing. When partaking in fiction, like a book or movie, we adopt a "Willing Suspension of Disbelief" for enjoyment's sake. There's a similar force at work in sports: "Willing Suspension of Rationality". If you doubt this, listen to any conversation between rival team fans. You even see it among fans of the same team. Fans argue over who's the better QB or goalie, and selectively cite stats that support their views while ignoring those that don't.
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sj-roc
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There was a lunar eclipse visible from the west coast of North America this morning that ran from about 3:15amPT (onset of partiality of the eclipse) until (and continued briefly after) the moon set on the western horizon around 6:30amPT, around the time of sunrise.

If you missed it and want to see some nice video, check out this link:

http://www.space.com/19195-night-sky-pl ... casts.html

Given the late hour at which it was to unfold, I hadn't initially planned to watch live this morning with the naked eye. But as luck would have it, nature called me out of my slumber to the washroom around 3am shortly before it started so I stayed up for it. At 3:05am there was still a bright full moon but the clouds gave only intermittent views of the onset until about 3:45am, at which point about 1/3 of the moon was covered in shadow. Then the sky became clear and offered a great view right through the total eclipse over the duration of about 4:58-5:03am (which is quite brief as far as lunar eclipses go; they can go for longer than an hour depending on how close to the centre the earth's shadow the moon travels) and also for some time afterward. The moon of course also drifted across the sky this whole time as always, getting closer to the western horizon with time. I continued watching until about 6am by which point the top 70% or so portion of the moon was illuminated. Unfortunately by then it had almost drifted out of view from my kitchen window, getting too low in the sky and at too oblique an angle. Clouds were also creeping back in anyway.

The video in the above link shows the entire eclipse process over real time and runs for several hours, but it's easy to jump around from one place to another on the video without having to watch the whole thing. The max amount of eclipse is around about the 2h30m00s through 3h30m00s portion.

EDIT: there's an interesting non-astronomical event that occurs at about the 3h54m40s mark of the video, where an airplane can be seen travelling vertically across the field of view of the eclipse in the course of a few seconds. The plane also produces two vapour trails that can be seen against the bright portion of the moon for several seconds before they dissipate.

Here's a screen cap I took of the plane flying through:

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Sports can be a peculiar thing. When partaking in fiction, like a book or movie, we adopt a "Willing Suspension of Disbelief" for enjoyment's sake. There's a similar force at work in sports: "Willing Suspension of Rationality". If you doubt this, listen to any conversation between rival team fans. You even see it among fans of the same team. Fans argue over who's the better QB or goalie, and selectively cite stats that support their views while ignoring those that don't.
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