What I did on my summer vacation

[Dweller_Benthos]

I've decided to edit this to include the whole trip, so if you find it boring, just skip to the exciting video, lol. Apologies for the quality of the pictures, I'm working on my laptop in GIMP, which I've never used before, without a mouse, as it's batteries died

I left New York State on Friday morning, and headed south. As usual, Pennsylvania was the trouble spot, with road construction (they are always rebuilding the roads in Pennsylvania), torrential downpours (not their fault, but it still happened there), and accidents caused by said downpours. So I arrived at my motel in Virginia two hours later than originally planned, just in time for sunset and this shot of the clouds from the motel parking lot.

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After arriving at my cousin's house the next day, we loaded into their car and drove to the coast. We arrived at the rental house on the beach and could relax a bit, and enjoy the ocean view from the deck.

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On Sunday it was a typical day on the beach, with something I call 85-85-85 weather, 85°F (or more like 90°F), 85% humidity and 85°F ocean temperature. The ocean was like stepping into bath water almost. We did the usual beach combing and swimming, getting sunburned and then seafood from the local take out place, etc.

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On Monday, or Eclipse Day, we left at 5:00 AM to get to the place we wanted to watch the eclipse from, and people filled in the place pretty quickly. We picked this place as it has a visitor center for the national forest with hiking trails, and more importantly, bathrooms and air conditioning. It was more like 90-90-90 weather that day, very hot and very humid. But people settled in and waited.

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The visitor center had a small trail system through the marshland with the usual interpretive signs and educational materials. This is sub-tropical so there are the usual things like .... spiders ....

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... and gators ...

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They also have red wolves there, but the pictures I got weren't the best and using GIMP on a laptop with no mouse, I decided to not bother. Once I get home to better software and equipment, I may update these photos to be a little better.

So, it was just a waiting game after that, popping into the visitor center to get cooled off, then the eclipse started

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From then on, it was just watching the sun get eaten by the moon until it went total, and a cloud almost ruined the event, but cleared just in time to catch the last minute and a half of totality. If you ever get a chance to see a total eclipse, do yourself the favor and see it, nothing compares to seeing one in person. Amazing.

The video is a bit rough, and the cloud clears just enough to see it OK after a minute or so. Here's the full thing:



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After that there was nothing to do but pack up and leave, as the clouds had moved in and blocked the sun, so watching any of the eclipse after that wasn't possible. So we drove back to the beach house, and the trip that took two hours that morning now took over five due to the traffic of everyone leaving the same place at the same time.


Tuesday and Wednesday were spent mostly relaxing and swimming in the ocean, so I didn't take any pictures. Wednesday night some heavy thunderstorms moved through and left Thursday being rainy and cloudy for most of the morning. So we decided to go to the aquarium just up the coast as it's a good place to be inside on a rainy day.

Most of the fish in the tanks moved too fast for me to get a good shot of them, but the jellyfish were slow enough to get some good shots.

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A new exhibit they added since the last time we were there was an enclosure for lorikeets, which were almost tame and very friendly.

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On the way back from the aquarium, we stopped at the local golf course where they have an overlook platform so people can view the golf course, and the alligators that live there. Yes, this is essentially a water hazard for the golf course, so if your shot goes in the water, there is no retrieving it, I guess you just drop a new ball on shore and take a 2 stroke penalty or something. I don't think anyone tries to get their ball back with guys like this lurking around.

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We've driven by this place and seen alligators crossing the road or out on the greens sunning themselves, not sure what the golf rules are when an alligator blocks your putt.

Oh yeah as Art mentioned, my camera has a panorama mode, so a couple of the shots were taken with that.

The last few days were spent getting beat up in the waves and eating seafood. After relaxing on the deck the last night I walked out to the beach and took this shot, I guess this is why they call the place Sunset Beach.

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The next three days were mostly spent in cars traveling. First back to my cousin's house where I stayed the night then the next day and a half driving home.

[Art Blade]

Cool, D_B.

I once witnessed one myself over here from my office window overseeing the city, some 20+ or so years ago. Cars would stop, pedestrians would stop, they all wanted to watch. The birds went quiet, everything went quiet. And pitch-black because it was in the middle of the day and the street lights weren't supposed to be on, so they were off. That was truly the most amazing thing, being in a city that simply went dark and quiet.

[Dweller_Benthos]

Very cool, Art. I was amazed, there is no describing watching one in person. I've edited the first post to be a travelogue of my whole trip. If anything else exciting happens the rest of the week, I'll post about it. Today, most likely, will be a down day as we relax and recover from yesterday. Just all the time in the car was enough to be exhausting. Most likely we will go swimming at some point today and I'll try not to get a sunburn on top of my sunburn.

[PZ]

Very nice, D_B    Looks like you had a great vacation 

I was in the parking lot of Costco when the eclipse happened - we watched for quite a while and in our area we had a 93% eclipse.

[mandru]

That trip in itself was pretty cool and you got to witness a very rare event on top of it all.  I'd say score 100 for D_B. 

we watched for quite a while and in our area we had a 93% eclipse.

I believe we got the opposite 93% of the eclipse from what you saw PZ. 


I quickly tossed together a camera obscura yesterday morning.  I used an evenly split (top and bottom page halves) standard sized paper sheet of stout card stock for rigidity. Cutting a 1 inch square hole in the center of one of the card stock pieces I then covered that hole with aluminum foil and centered a round hole in the foil with a pin.

Standing so the sun shined in over my shoulder through the pinhole (held near my left ear behind my line of eyesight so I wouldn't be distracted by the sunlight on that card) I could focus the second half of the card stock by holding it in a parallel plane in the shadow of its other half to be my viewing screen.

In the thirty or so minutes that I was standing like that viewing the progress of the eclipse I had four different people walking past scold me that I was going to burn my eyeballs out of my sockets. 

I genuinely think when it comes to eclipses that most people are laboring under some sort of superstitious belief.  It's as if they've been convinced that there's a magic eclipse ray from the sun.  Then that magic light in turn is focused by the moon into some weird form of a mild death ray intent on punishing anyone who dares to try to view the transit of the moon across the face of the sun. 

I explained why my viewing rig was safe but I don't think I convinced half of them.

[Art Blade]

very nice, D_B. I like what are supposedly panoramic shots very much and I like the rest, too.

For some reason one picture I'm not going to mention by detail made me ponder over whether or not a gator sandwich might taste nice.

mandru, very cool construction to observe an eclipse with

[fragger]

Thanks for the cool piccies, story and thoughts, D_B That's worth a +1 I reckon Enjoy the rest of your vacation!

A total is on my bucket list (I've seen a couple of partials) but of course it's a question of being able to hit the right place at the right time.

In the thirty or so minutes that I was standing like that viewing the progress of the eclipse I had four different people walking past scold me that I was going to burn my eyeballs out of my sockets. 

Oh dear... I really don't know what some people think. I'm surprised they summoned up the courage to step outside My understanding is that the greatest danger is in the first few seconds after totality. Leading up to totality, your eyes have time to adapt as the darkness grows - but when the sunlight abruptly peeks out from behind the moon while you're looking straight at it, your pupils can't contract quickly enough to protect your retinae from the sudden barrage of raw sunlight. This is when the damage can occur.

Ophthalmologists are not fans of "eclipse glasses" as that pupil thing can still happen to some people even with the glasses, due to different peoples' eyes having different thresholds for light-intensity tolerance (age plays a big part in this too). It's not so much the light itself as it is your pupils' limited capacity to shield your retinae from abrupt and extreme changes in light intensity. Eclipse glasses are of course far safer than naked-eye viewing, but they aren't 100% foolproof. But if you absolutely must have them, DO NOT go cheap! Fork out for high-quality ones from a reputable manufacturer. You can't fork out for new eyeballs, not even cheap ones.

The old pinhole technique is a long-standing, tried-and-tested method for viewing an eclipse. I knew about that one when I was a kid. I don't know why it isn't brought to more peoples' attention as it is a completely safe, simple and effective way to view a total. Not that I've ever tried it myself, but I know a couple of people who have (a group which now includes mandru). I guess it lacks the sense of awe that one might get from seeing the eclipse "for real", but your vision is a steep price to pay for that awe.

+1 for you too mandru, for the technique and the story

[fragger]

Part 2

There is another type of eclipse which I would love to see, called an "annular" eclipse. This is when the Moon passes in front of the sun, as in a total, but when the Moon is at its furthest point from Earth in its orbit (like just about every orbiting body, the Moon does not follow a perfect circle around the Earth, but an ellipse, with Earth in one foci). Because the Moon appears "smaller" than usual due to its distance, it doesn't completely cover the Sun but instead leaves a bright ring of sunlight around it.

Supposedly, once you've seen a total, an annular isn't as big a deal as it doesn't go completely dark and you don't get the same sense of awe. But I want to see one anyway. There was one visible from Australia back in 2013 but an overcast sky spoiled the show

Annular Eclipse

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[mandru]

Thanks for the pat on the back fragger. 

[nex]

Brilliant video clip D_B thanks for sharing +1 for that  

[Dweller_Benthos]

Thanks everyone, it was a great time, and the vacation has been going well since. Mostly, we've been spending time in the ocean, as it's not often I can get in a large body of water that's so warm it might as well be a bathtub. 85°F is very warm for me, as I'm used to swimming in rivers in the Adirondacks where the water might get to 60°F if you're lucky. Anyway, that's not too exciting, so no pictures, though some of the "scenery" here at the beach (the warm-blooded kind that might wear a bikini, if you know what I mean), is very nice to look at.

The gators are protected, I think, no making sandwiches out of them, though further south and west they are hunted quite regularly for both food and the skin.

I saw an annular eclipse back in the 90s, and it was interesting though I was at w0#k and not able to give it a good look. It wasn't nearly as even around the edge as the picture fragger posted, as it was a little lop-sided but it was a ring for a good amount of time. But now that I've seen a total, it's a distant second place. Still something worth seeing, though.

[Art Blade]

 

[Dweller_Benthos]

We had some heavy thunderstorms move through last night, and it was cloudy and rainy still today, so we went to the aquarium up the coast. Too tired to do any pictures tonight, so I'll see if I can post a few tomorrow.

Added some new photos to the main post.

[PZ]

Nice pics, D_B 

Looks like that 'gator has a history of encountering people looking for their golf balls 

[Art Blade]

 

Might take a panoramic shot of the last golfer strewn about the course after losing an argument with a gator over a golf ball.

oh, very nice pic of the yellow jellyfish.