Photo by NASA.
The Western U.S. is getting an annular eclipse this weekend, which is an eclipse where the moon’s shadow turns the sun into a “ring of fire.” A swath of the country from Oregon down to Texas will see the whole enchilada, and most other Westerners will get to see at least a partial eclipse. Those of us on the East Coast are SOL until 2017.
This video is a little bit of a snore but has good information, including:
- Don’t look directly at it, dipwads!
- But you can look through a number 14 welding mask.
- Or make a pinhole camera by latticing your fingers!
- Possibly the coolest thing is that light coming through small holes — like, say, the spaces between leaves — will show up as little rings. So any normally sun-dappled pavements or walls are going to look really rad.
- No, wait — the coolest thing is that in some places, the eclipse and sunset will happen at the same time, so the “ring of fire” will be large and low in the sky.
It also has a map showing where the effect will be most pronounced.
