Members of the Cuyahoga Astronomical Association (CAA) rose early June 10 to view, photograph, and promote the (locally) partial solar eclipse. Already in progress as Sun rose above the horizon, the annular eclipse or “ring of fire” could not be seen but decent coverage of the solar disk did result in some impressive views.
In addition to watching the eclipse members, led by special events director Jay Reynolds, hosted members of the public at Cleveland’s Edgewater Park. The view from Edgewater’s lakefront location included the rising partly-eclipsed Sun with the lakeshore and Cleveland’s skyline.
Other members took up station at Avon Lake, Bay Village, and even inland at a Medina County location. Here, in mixed order, is a sampling of member photographs:
Jeff Lewis, in Bay Village, captured this view of the eclipsed sun as it rose above the Lake Erie horizon.Dave Nuti captured this view of the rising eclipsed Sun and the Cleveland, Ohio skyline as seen from Edgewater Park.Jay Reynolds made this photograph of early risers viewing the eclipse from Edgewater Park with the “photo op” Cleveland sign in the foreground.CAA member Nora Mishey, CAA’s Education Director, discusses the science of eclipses with members of the public at Edgewater Park in this photo by Anita Kazarian.A horn of the eclipsed Sun become visible as it rises from the Lake Erie horizon. Viewed from Bay Village.James Guilford captured this view from far inland — rural Medina County — where ground fog created interesting lighting effects.Joe Hamlin, in Avon Lake, produced this colorful capture of the eclipse over Lake Erie.Photographing the eclipse from Edgewater Park, the photographer was photographed by Anita Kazarian.Matt Franduto shot this photo of the cloud-obscured eclipse through his telescope.Jeff Lewis, from Bay Village, shared this view of the rising eclipse as it clears some low clouds.Calling this the “cherry bowl”, James Guilford produced this image of the sunrise eclipse as seen through ground fog in rural Medina County.Rising from a nest of clouds, the red eclipsed Sun was imaged by Timothy Campbell from Edgewater Park.Chris Elder was in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire, for the eclipse. Patchy clouds blocked the view at dawn, but they broke up about 20 minutes in revealing some of the best eclipse views available in the country.
An annular eclipse of the sun will take place June 10 and it will be underway at sunrise. Unfortunately, even with clear skies we will not see the “ring of fire” that is the namesake look of this type of eclipse. In fact, no place in the United States will see the complete circle, or annulus, of Sun around Moon. So don’t feel left out.
In our area, sunrise will be at 5:55 AM (EDT) with the eclipse already at its maximum for us. The eclipse ends at 6:35 AM as Moon completes its passage across Sun.
A total eclipse of the sun takes place when Earth’s Moon, at normal orbital distances, covers the solar disk completely and blocks all but the glowing corona from view. An annular eclipse takes place when Moon is at higher points in its orbit when it passes between Earth and Sun, too distant and small to form a perfect cover, allowing a brilliant ring of our star to shine.
What we may see at dawn and diminishing thereafter, is a partial solar eclipse — looking a bit like the chomping character from the classic PAC-MAN video game. Much of the solar disk will be visible but the curved edge of Moon will take a bite out of one side.
How can you watch the eclipse? With great care!
Partial Eclipse of the Sun, August 21, 2017 — this image rotated to resemble what viewers might see at dawn, June 10, 2021. Photo by James Guilford
How can you watch the eclipse? With great care! At no time during our partial solar eclipse will it be safe to watch the event without vision protection. If you have eclipse glasses from a recent solar eclipse, those should be just fine — just make sure there are no pinholes or other damage to the plastic film “lenses”! You can check for damage by holding the eclipse viewer at arm’s length and looking at a bright lightbulb. If you see any dots of light through the viewer film, throw those glasses out!
Do NOT look at the sun through sunglasses, even multiple sets of sunglasses, or photo negatives, Compact Discs, or anything other than certified eclipse viewing equipment! Pinhole and other projection techniques can be used safely since the viewer is looking at a projection and not the sun itself. Five Ways to View the Solar Eclipse
“The Sun can be viewed safely with the naked eye only during the few brief seconds or minutes of a total solar eclipse. Partial eclipses, annular eclipses, and the partial phases of total eclipses are never safe to watch without taking special precautions. Even when 99% of the Sun’s surface is obscured during the partial phases of a total eclipse, the remaining photospheric crescent is intensely bright and cannot be viewed safely without eye protection [Chou, 1981; Marsh, 1982]. Do not attempt to observe the partial or annular phases of any eclipse with the naked eye. Failure to use appropriate filtration may result in permanent eye damage or blindness!” — NASA: Eye Safety During Solar Eclipses
Transit of Mercury, May 9, 2016. A cloudy sky left occasional openings for views of tiny Mercury slowly gliding across the solar disk. Photo by James Guilford.
UPDATE: The Transit of Mercury program planned for Edgewater Park has been canceled due to a forecast of clouds, rain/snow, and below freezing temps. We’ll have to try again in 13 years when the next transit comes around.
The planet Mercury will cross between Earth and Sun on Monday, November 11, 2019. Given clear skies, members of the Cuyahoga Astronomical Association (CAA) will be stationed at the lower level of Edgewater Park offering safe viewing of the event. Viewing times at Edgewater will be from noon until just after 1:00 p.m.
CAA members will be present with their solar-safe telescopes offering several ways of viewing our Sun. Cloudy skies will, of course, cancel the event. No tickets or reservations are required; those interested should simply come to the park. The transit is a natural, astronomical occurrence and cannot be rescheduled; when it has finished, it is finished!
Anyone with eclipse viewing glasses would be able to view the transit but without the magnification offered by a telescope, the event will be hard to see. Mercury, officially a planet, is not quite three times the size of Earth’s Moon. Viewed from Earth, around 48 million miles distant, Mercury is tiny!
The 2019 transit begins at about 7:35 a.m. and will end at 1:04 p.m. November 11. Another transit of Mercury won’t take place for 13 years.
WARNING: NEVER look directly at the sun through binoculars, a telescope, or with your unaided eye. Permanent eye damage and even blindness can result. Astronomers use special filters and glasses to safely observe the sun. Sunglasses, photo negatives, etc. will not protect against eye injury.
This illustration shows the position of NASA’s Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 probes, outside of the heliosphere, a protective bubble created by the Sun that extends well past the orbit of Pluto. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech
For the second time in history, a human-made object has reached the space between the stars. NASA’s Voyager 2 probe now has exited the heliosphere – the protective bubble of particles and magnetic fields created by the Sun.
Comparing data from different instruments aboard the trailblazing spacecraft, mission scientists determined the probe crossed the outer edge of the heliosphere on Nov. 5. This boundary, called the heliopause, is where the tenuous, hot solar wind meets the cold, dense interstellar medium. Its twin, Voyager 1, crossed this boundary in 2012, but Voyager 2 carries a working instrument that will provide first-of-its-kind observations of the nature of this gateway into interstellar space.
Voyager 2 now is slightly more than 11 billion miles (18 billion kilometers) from Earth. Mission operators still can communicate with Voyager 2 as it enters this new phase of its journey, but information – moving at the speed of light – takes about 16.5 hours to travel from the spacecraft to Earth. By comparison, light traveling from the Sun takes about eight minutes to reach Earth.
The most compelling evidence of Voyager 2’s exit from the heliosphere came from its onboard Plasma Science Experiment (PLS), an instrument that stopped working on Voyager 1 in 1980, long before that probe crossed the heliopause. Until recently, the space surrounding Voyager 2 was filled predominantly with plasma flowing out from our Sun. This outflow, called the solar wind, creates a bubble – the heliosphere – that envelopes the planets in our solar system. The PLS uses the electrical current of the plasma to detect the speed, density, temperature, pressure and flux of the solar wind. The PLS aboard Voyager 2 observed a steep decline in the speed of the solar wind particles on Nov. 5. Since that date, the plasma instrument has observed no solar wind flow in the environment around Voyager 2, which makes mission scientists confident the probe has left the heliosphere.
“Working on Voyager makes me feel like an explorer, because everything we’re seeing is new,” said John Richardson, principal investigator for the PLS instrument and a principal research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. “Even though Voyager 1 crossed the heliopause in 2012, it did so at a different place and a different time, and without the PLS data. So we’re still seeing things that no one has seen before.”
In addition to the plasma data, Voyager’s science team members have seen evidence from three other onboard instruments – the cosmic ray subsystem, the low energy charged particle instrument and the magnetometer – that is consistent with the conclusion that Voyager 2 has crossed the heliopause. Voyager’s team members are eager to continue to study the data from these other onboard instruments to get a clearer picture of the environment through which Voyager 2 is traveling.
“There is still a lot to learn about the region of interstellar space immediately beyond the heliopause,” said Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist based at Caltech in Pasadena, California.
“Voyager has a very special place for us in our heliophysics fleet,” said Nicola Fox, director of the Heliophysics Division at NASA Headquarters. “Our studies start at the Sun and extend out to everything the solar wind touches. To have the Voyagers sending back information about the edge of the Sun’s influence gives us an unprecedented glimpse of truly uncharted territory.”
While the probes have left the heliosphere, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 have not yet left the solar system, and won’t be leaving anytime soon. The boundary of the solar system is considered to be beyond the outer edge of the Oort Cloud, a collection of small objects that are still under the influence of the Sun’s gravity. The width of the Oort Cloud is not known precisely, but it is estimated to begin at about 1,000 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun and to extend to about 100,000 AU. One AU is the distance from the Sun to Earth. It will take about 300 years for Voyager 2 to reach the inner edge of the Oort Cloud and possibly 30,000 years to fly beyond it.
CAA: Cuyahoga Astronomical Association 