Juliancolton

Damage

Yeah, nice double rainbow and some sprinkles here as well. Apparently it got pretty intense just to my SW.

I decided to sleep-in this am and look what I missed...

We dry I think. Tonight's sunset was epic due to the cirrus outflow from the storm and I suspect sunrise tomorrow could follow suit... might head down to Constitution Marsh or somewhere nearby for some shots if the sat loop looks decent at 4 am. A comforting thought... with July ending shortly, snow prospects start becoming plausible in just three months. August should fly right by thanks to the eclipse and then we're home free.

I may prop my phone up somewhere and shoot some quick video during totality for the sentimental value, but otherwise I plan to focus on still photography and just observing. That may change if I find myself stuck in dodgy wx and only get to see the fully eclipsed sun through breaks in the clouds, in which case it would make more sense to record just video and extract the clearest frames later... wouldn't want my eyes glued to viewfinders the whole time.

You can record shadow bands, but they're so faint that they'd be imperceptible in a still photograph. The effect is mostly one of movement.

I guess "call before you dig" doesn't apply to professionals... what a disaster for the local economy.

Not one of my favorite storms. To get almost 3" of liquid without any mixing and not break 20" is a pretty huge fail. Tracking it was the best part of the whole event... though I suppose that's true more often than not.

Oh what could have been (and this wasn't even in the core of the CME as far as I can tell).

That's good advice for most but even though this will hopefully be my first TSE, photography will be a big part of the day for me. I work as a photographer so I'm intimately familiar with my camera gear and can operate it in the dark or under pressure, etc. I plan to have three cameras set up – one mounted to a telescope for close-up views, one with a 300mm telephoto lens for imaging the outer corona, and one with a wide-angle lens to capture the scenery at totality (this one might get axed depending on my viewing site. Hotel parking lot? meh.) With semi-automation and remote shutter releases, it'll be doable. I'm positive that not every shot will be a success... my biggest goal is merely to learn as many lessons as possible so I'm better prepared for future eclipses.

I'll be getting in early on the 20th, so hopefully it won't be too crazy yet.

This umbral shadow will be rather small, so as far as eclipses go, totality won't be particularly under clear skies – if you're standing at the centerline, it should still be quite bright around the entire horizon. As a rule, the eclipsed sun's corona is roughly as bright as the full moon. Overcast and a full moon would be navigable if your eyes are well adjusted to the dark, but with the light-switch action of totality, yeah... would be difficult to see.

If the College, AK station is really at K = 9, that's some pretty extreme high-lat storming.

There were a HSS and secondary glancing CME thrown into the mix as well, so maybe a slighter higher chance than normal of favorable conditions persisting all day. Probably a lost cause, though.

The aggregate of modelling from the CME scoreboard has it hitting mid-morning tomorrow local time, which would be pretty abysmal timing but also par for the course the past few years. I'll be checking periodically throughout the night tonight for an early arrival

G2 watch in effect starting Sunday from the full-halo CME last night. This is from the STEREO craft situated out ahead of earth so the amount of plasma headed east is misleading, but still, surprisingly impressive event for such a magnetically simple sunspot region.

I'd still try to get to totality next month if at all possible. I'm stoked about 2024 being a stone's throw away and a better eclipse in general, but seven years is a long time and ya just never know what the future holds...

Tomorrow night is worth watching with the rapid-fire CIR/CH/CME sequence. Hopefully the timing is right and the streams don't just destructively interfere with each other.

Forgot about this thread... Every hotel in Santee, SC was completely booked when I checked a few weeks ago. Lodging options are probably pretty well exhausted in most of the path of totality at this point.

Coronal holes always become bigger and more numerous during the years leading up to solar minimum. Nothing new as far as I can tell.

Wow, that's pretty crazy. I still haven't decided where I'll be setting up shop. Sort of thinking about Lake Marion in SC, since it's a relatively picturesque area for eclipse landscape photos, and probably the easiest drive to anywhere along the totality path.

Just one more year!

Things got pretty lively for a time on the Sebec Lake webcam. Probably would have been able to pick up some color on camera down here, but I wasn't feelin' it.

Good stuff. I put together a WV loop earlier, if anybody's interested.

In case anyone still needs to be convinced, here's some incontrovertible evidence for you: https://www.facebook.com/Upworthy/videos/1160303567343833/