One of many
trip reports under the
SilGro home page for Alan Silverstein and Cathie
Grow.
Email me at
ajs@frii.com.
Last update: April 3, 2024
(Previous trip report: 1993_1023-1108_STS58_QSO.htm)
Fly to see an annular solar eclipse? Nope... Settled for a partial event in Fort Collins, Colorado.
The day started at 5 am when we scrubbed our plans to fly about 2.5 hours southeast to near Amarillo, Texas. The weather reports were terrible and the satellite images later that morning confirmed them... It looked like solid clouds along the annularity path from about El Paso to Oklahoma City. (But if you could get the GIFs, the penumbral shadow was clearly visible on four of them, 0910-1210 MDT, crossing the US.)
So instead of flying to Texas, I spent the morning sharing the event with several hundred excited children (and adults) at my daughter's elementary school here in northern Colorado. We had beautiful clear skies. The temperature dropped considerably at maximum (about 1027 MDT), and it was dark enough to be noticed by people who had forgotten about the event.
I set up a 40X land scope on a tripod projecting an image onto an attached screen, and a pinhole mirror casting an image about 30' onto paper taped to a shady wall. I had available for passing around a stiff sheet of paper full of pinholes and a second stiff sheet onto which to project the images. I laid a big sheet of paper under a nearby tree and sent kids over there to witness the crescent images.
But the most popular item I brought was a #14 welder's lens I mounted in a holder and left out to be passed around. It saw nearly continuous use for over two hours. I collected nose prints from half the school (grin).
I was depressed by the lack of cosmological awareness and attention span demonstrated by most of the kids, and the adults too. It was hard to know where to even start answering some of their questions. I think most of them left without any real idea what they had just seen or what was actually occurring. It was just a neat thing to see in the sky... Oh well, I tried.
(Next trip report: 1994_0514_HorsetoothMtn.htm)