Corollary to Murphy's Law: The thickness of cloud grows in direct proportion to the degree of eclipse. Gosh, to look at this image you'd almost think the Earth weren't flat.
Hotels and camp sites along the path are already filling up. I'm still deciding on whether to go camping around Yellowstone with friends (who already have a camp site) and take a week off of work, or just fly out to the path in a little plane so that I can get above/away from whatever clouds are undoubtedly going to be in my vicinity on that day. It's like 1/2 the reason I got the IFR rating.
I'm not sure exactly where the site is. Either place should be pretty good. There's supposedly a 60% chance of completely clear skies for that time of year in that part of the country.
All the good campsites are full. We're looking at just staying at our friend's cabin. It's in the 98% zone. It's a couple hours round trip to get to the 100%. I'm wondering if the 2% will be worth it.
Well, I was going to go home (SC) to visit in June (my B-Day), might have to postpone until August. I live in VA. right now.
mmm you mean 98% total (2% partial sun)? You want to be total. You can look at the moon and see the sun's corona with your bare eyes. Can't see nothing but a blinding sliver of the sun (don't hurt yourself) at 98%.
Columbia, SC is the best place to view the 2017 total solar eclipse on the east coast. We also have the longest duration of totality for any metropolitan area on the east coast– 2 min & 36 seconds of it! Not only that, there are plenty of events going on in the city that weekend leading up to the eclipse, and a wide variety of eclipse viewing events. http://www.totaleclipsecolumbiasc.com has all of the information on how to plan your eclipse weekend in Columbia.
I ordered a ten pack of eclipse viewing glasses and a ten pack of eclipse viewing shields off Amazon for about $20. If anything I can sell the extras at the eclipse for $5 each. If people bitch about it, the price goes to $10.
I can't miss any more work. I used up all my vacation time between visiting my daughter and my wife's recent mental health issues. That said here in Augusta we will get a projected 95 percent eclipse so that will still be pretty cool.
see this is what I'm afraid of - there might be a lot of misinformation about viewing options, or the glasses sold might be defective.
Yes, but not all have the right filters. I believe you need ones with a #14 filter to be safe. NASA has posted which ones you can use.
This. #14 is apparently the grade to use. I thought about going cheap and just recording the eclipse through some welders glass, but I was worried that it would make the sun look green so I sprang for a dedicated solar filter (expensive as hell ) for my camera.
got my 3d glasses, binocs, case of old milwaukee, costco sized bag of cheetos, extra 5gal container of gas. weather channel says sunny with a few clouds. SC here we come! @ed629 Will be at the rodeway inn (previous page). Silver Honda Fit (don't hurt me). After about 3 this afternoon. I'm the grey haired geek. Redhead wife in thrall (don't hurt me!).
I'm currently headed there, bought the solar glasses and viewers back in January. It turned out to be a family trip. My mom flew up Thursday evening, and my sister and her boyfriend are also going. He's driving, which is sort of nice, means I get to relax on the way up. We're about an hour out from Anderson at the moment. And yes, the weather forecast is calling for mostly sunny skies tomorrow. And @steve2^4 , I hope you mean solar glasses, not 3D glasses.
Got lunch, decided to try out a place called The Pompous Pig. Ordered the BBQ Nachos.... Almost finished it. Had about 4-5 nachos left over. I'm stuffed.
Now that looks fucking good. It kind of reminds me of carne asada chips but with pulled pork instead. Around here most people use french fries instead of corn chips but most Mexican places will serve both. Pulled pork sounds like a nice regional variation on the nachos theme.
It was damn good. And twice the size I expected it to be. And it had a pleasant surprise. The chips were fresh made, not premade ones.