Story Index:

Eclipse!!
08/29/2017

Summer Weekend in the Colorado Rockies
07/19/2016

Kim's Day In The Sun
02/28/2015

Tracing Roots
01/15/2015

Whitney Completes Her Master's Degree
01/10/2015

Day Trip to Moorea
11/01/2012

Stopover in Tahiti
10/30/2012

Exploring New Zealand's Northland
10/27/2012

Waiheke Island
10/24/2012

2012 Triathlon World Championships
10/23/2012

Travails with Tom-Tom
10/21/2012

Off to New Zealand!
10/18/2012

Cycling on the Oregon Coast
07/24/2012

Partial Solar Eclipse, May 20
05/23/2012

"Tour of California" Bike Race comes through town!
05/15/2012

Wildflower Triathlon a family affair
05/07/2012

Truth in Packaging?
04/01/2012

Nik Graduates from Cal Poly
12/10/2011

Cal Poly's Open House Weekend
04/17/2011

The 2010 US Census is here
03/16/2010

Cultural Musings...
09/18/2009

2009 Triathlon World Championships
09/12/2009

Sightseeing around the Gold Coast
09/09/2009

South Bank: Brisbane's Fine Arts center
09/05/2009

Brisbane, Australia
09/04/2009

Catching up . . .
08/31/2009

Summa Cum Laude, Baby!
06/15/2008

Kim completes her first Half-Ironman
06/10/2008

Kim Visits Home for Wildflower Triathlon
05/16/2008

The Last Supper
02/16/2008

Farewell, Dad
01/15/2008

Whitney Plays Final Soccer Game
12/10/2007

Watch the Women's World Cup!
09/12/2007

Kim Blazes Chicago Triathlon
08/27/2007

Nik Bicycles Pacific Coast
08/15/2007

Whitney Begins Final Season
08/13/2007

More Triathlons for Kim
06/15/2006

Corvallis gets snow!
03/09/2006

Pac-10 Conference Player of the Week
01/15/2006

Whitney's new cat
09/26/2005

Kim in Chicago Triathlon
08/31/2005

Rare family get-together
08/23/2005

Empty Nest
08/11/2005

Whitney Signs National Letter-of-Intent
02/08/2004

ODP cancels European tour
04/11/2003

Whitney renamed to Regional Team
08/07/2002

Kim graduates from Willamette
06/17/2002

Whitney Stars in High School Soccer
03/07/2002

Nik graduates from UTI
01/07/2002

2001 - A Year for Remembrance
12/30/2001

Whitney selected to the 2001 State ODP pool for U-15 Girls
03/22/2001

Kim returns from Europe
02/02/2001

2000: A Year for Traveling
12/15/2000

Kim Travels Europe
11/24/2000

Whitney selected to the US Far Western Regional ODP Pool!
07/14/2000

Congratulations to Nik, Ygnacio Valley High Graduating Class of 2000!
06/30/2000
Partial Solar Eclipse, May 20

We happened to be close to the track of the May 20 annular solar eclipse. The San Francisco Bay Area wasn't directly under the eclipse track, so we saw a partial eclipse--at it's peak, about 90% of the sun's surface was covered.


Overlapping leaves on a tree created thousands of tiny "pinhole cameras" projecting images of the crescent sun on the side of a car.

Contrary to the blithering of TV news reporters and the online ignorati, this was not a "total eclipse of the sun." A total eclipse is one in which the moon completely obscures the sun. For this month's eclipse, the moon was at apogee, the farthest point in its elliptical orbit, so appeared slightly smaller than normal when seen from the earth. If you were on the earth's surface directly under the eclipse track, the best you would see is an annular eclipse, in which the smaller appearing moon can't completely block the sun.

While it's fun to witness, an annular eclipse is just not as impressive to me as a total eclipse. We witnessed a total eclipse in Montana in 1979, and it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience well worth traveling to see. But as close as we were to this month's eclipse track, I wasn't motivated to travel a couple hundred miles to see the annular phase. When it comes to covering the sun, there's a huge difference between 99% and 100%.


from www.eclipser.ca (http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~jander/ase2012/ase12intro.htm)


Posted by Dan 05/23/2012, revised 06/05/2012 by Dan
FreeStyle Journal 19.03.21
©2003-2011 by Dan Goodell

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