1oldman2 said:
Thanks for the "Heads up"
And NASA is putting on a "Two month to the Eclipse" event.
https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov/save-date-june-21-2017
Actually, I just doubled checked, and the eclipse will only be at 45° above the horizon where I plan on being at.
It looks like it will be at around 63° at maximum.
ps. I did some spectral testing on the 1st of June, and IMHO, it was a dismal failure.
The "rainbow" in the upper right hand corner is why I was interested in BillTre's "Very Dark Black" thread.
My redneck paper towel tube lined with black craft paper and held together with duct tap solar filter device seems to still be leaking light.
Which is a good thing, as it gives me time to research this some more, and maybe whittle something out of a tree branch, as the above device tended to fall off if the wind blew, or I moved the camera, or the camera decided to turn off and retract the lens, at which point the wind would blow it across my driveway.
And my brand new garage sale tripod is much more robust than the one I picked up last year. 1/3 the price, also.
pps. Here's another image of a solar spectrum:
The Flash Spectrum of the Sun [APOD]
Image Credit & Copyright: Constantine Emmanouilidi
Explanation: In a flash, the visible spectrum of the Sun changed from absorption to emission on November 3rd, during the brief total phase of a solar eclipse. That fleeting moment is captured by telephoto lens and diffraction grating in this well-timed image from clearing skies over Gabon in equatorial Africa. With overwhelming light from the Sun's disk blocked by the Moon, the normally dominant absorption spectrum of the solar photosphere is hidden. What remains, spread by the diffraction grating into the spectrum of colors to the right of the eclipsed Sun, are individual eclipse images at each wavelength of light emitted by atoms along the thin arc of the solar chromosphere. The brightest images, or strongest chromospheric emission lines, are due to Hydrogen atoms that produce the red hydrogen alpha emission at the far right and blue hydrogen beta emission to the left. In between, the bright yellow emission image is caused by atoms of Helium, an element only first discovered in the flash spectrum of the Sun.
(a tad too large for PF)
But that bolded part just gave me confirmation of what I was already planning on doing. A video. Even though the resolution drops down to 640 x 480, I'm familiar enough with the camera now, that I know it takes a while to focus, and think about other things, before it finally takes a picture. Getting that shot with a dollar store auto focus camera strikes me as nearly impossible.
hmmmmm... I do have an old Canon A-1 sitting in the closet, and I do have that spare tripod from last years garage sale. Do they still make that silver based plastic "film" stuff, from the olden days?
ppps. I also found the one link that APOD mentioned interesting, as I may have just glossed over some of those facts in the past:
The spectrum of the corona.
... The green emission (at a wavelength of 530 nm) was discovered in 1869 and its origin remained a mystery for over 70 years. Because it could not be identified with any element known on the Earth, it was suspected that it might be due to a new element, tentatively dubbed "coronium." (Remember, that helium was first discovered in the solar spectrum and named after the Sun.) Eventually, however, the mysterious green line was shown to be due to thirteen-times-ionized iron, that is, iron atoms with 13 electrons stripped off! This was one of the first indications that the corona is extremely hot; indeed temperatures of several million degrees are required to strip 13 electrons from iron. The search for coronal heating mechanisms continues to this day...
I've bolded all the thing I find really interesting, or did not know, or had somehow forgotten.
