Live NASA telescope feed for today's solar eclipse [video] | Hacker News Reader

Live NASA telescope feed for today's solar eclipse [video]

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If you want to what the Moon's shadow looks like as it crosses Earth, from space, I highly encourage you to check out NOAA's GOES Image Viewer! As of this moment, you can see a very dark circle crossing over the central United States.

Even better, the website will animate the last 24 or so images (captured every 10 minutes). It's awesome! [1]

[1] https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/goes/fulldisk_band.php?sat=...

This shows the last 4 hours, which looks great right now.

Is there a way to "permalink" to these four hours in the future?

there's a download link. could upload that to, eg imgur

I suspected something like this would happen and ended up recording my screen. [1]

NOAA wipes out the images after a set amount of time (~1 month or so, looking at the images directory).

[1] https://youtu.be/IVXjmHkY7xQ?si=f4-3CTKnRi2uo0pb

Sitting under the cloud cover just praying that some of the gaps in the clouds would buddy up and make bigger gaps, I found myself looking forward to this view of being able to distinctly see the shadow racing across the cloud tops preventing the terrestrial views. While the moment of totality was reached was obscured so that I barely made out the diamond ring effect, the majority of totality was behind very thin clouds.

As luck would have it, within minutes after totality completed, it was blue sky with pretty much no clouds. I swear the gawds hate me or someone in my town!

Here is the NASA stream with commentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MJY_ptQW1o

Is it just coincidence that from our point of view the moon looks like it's the exact same size as the sun? Or is there something else going on?

Yes it’s an absolutely crazy coincidence that the moon is the correct proportion to its distance that results in perfect total eclipses.

I remember learning this fact in an astronomy class and that we’re not aware of this happening anywhere else in our solar system.

It's also "temporary" (moon's orbital radius increases ~4cm/year)

Interesting! I wonder how long ago (if ever) eclipses weren't even possible

it's the opposite, a long time ago eclipses were "bigger" and happened more often, as the moon drifts farther away, it seems smaller to us and will no longer be big enough in our sky to block the sun one day.

Thanks for clarifying

Estimates suggest that total solar eclipses could cease to occur in about 600 million years from now, give or take, depending on the precise nature of lunar recession and changes in Earth's rotation. This timeframe is long enough that many other changes on Earth and in the solar system will also occur, making the cessation of total solar eclipses just one of many transformations.

Then we will have to endure a few million years of people arguing whether or not it should be called an eclipse or a transit

Part of that is that Earth's moon is quite large compared to other moons like Phobos.

Here's a nice pic of Phobos and Deimos as seen from the mast-camera of Curiosity, compared with Luna.

I remember reading an Asimov piece many years ago where he was (typically) spinning out a kind of what-if about how the large size of the moon, and the consequent majorly-obvious eclipses, influenced the importance of ancient astronomy. Not to mention other effects like tides and moonlight.

Nice, I’d love to read that.

Is this the link? https://www.universetoday.com/166028/perseverance-sees-phobo...

It's here: https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/5511/illustration-comparing-....

He uses the "planet with a giant satellite" description of Earth as a plot point in Foundation (I think the final novel).

I recall reading that is a remarkable and fortunate coincidence. Cannot find citation at the moment.

check out this minutephysics video that explains and also talks about other eclipses in the solar system https://youtu.be/CikPFdZdY4k?si=NXpXHz06X3nZklt4

From my perspective it's one of many evidences that our planet was intentionally created by God. I think He wanted us to experience these rare and spectacular events and use them to make astronomical discoveries.

why can't it be 'accidentally' by God?

"It's a feature, not a bug" ~ God, probably

Although I do not consider myself to be a very religious person I have to say, that is a very beautiful thought. It's exceedingly rare these days that any topic brought up on religion will actually give me pause and for a moment make me wonder if there is something beyond scientific coincidence. It just really goes to show how all the fanfare behind a natural phenomenon as simple as an eclipse can be such a worthwhile human experience to share.

I just want to say that I don't understand why this is being downvoted. I'm an atheist and still see it as a wonderful (and different) way to interpret this fact. Even I am in awe of that fact, and it's only natural for crazy coincidences to feel "intentional"

It’s a nice to think that a creator took a break from devising all our ingeniously cruel childhood diseases to give us the occasional eclipse.

It’s not the same size BTW. Depending on a particular configuration, the moon can be between 10% bigger and 10% smaller than sun.

Yes, this is the strangest coincidence of this entire setup to me, it doesn't seem related to enabling the development of life (besides, when life arose, the position of the moon was quite different), but it was instrumental in verifying the theory of relativity, just in time for humanity to discover it.

And here's the backstory about verifying relativity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse_of_May_29,_1919

The whole idea of an annular solar eclipse is that the size is not actually exact :)

I think part of the perception that a total eclipse "perfectly" blocks the sun is that the corona has a fuzzy edge but the surface does not, so when the moon is actually larger than the sun in the sky you still see the same eerie coronal glow. In particular there's little perceptible difference between blocking 100% of the sun and blocking 105% of the sun, compared to 100% versus 95%.

And besides all the other remarks, both earth's and the moon's orbits are something like ellipses. So that the ratio of apparent size of the moon to apparent size of the sun is not fixed either. See annular eclipse.

From what I’ve heard, the moon is also moving away from earth, ever so slightly. Something like 1cm/year. Eventually, the moon will appear too small to cover the sun and the eclipse as we know it today will be no more. But that won’t be in our lifetime. Who knows if humans will even still be around..

TIL that eclipses have supersonic shadows that generate gravitational waves. https://www.livescience.com/61279-moon-s-supersonic-shadow-c...

Where in that article are gravitational waves mentioned?

> gravitational waves

You mean gravity waves [1], which are not the same thing as gravitational waves [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_wave

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_wave

The article mentions "waves in the ionosphere", not gravitational waves.

Y'know, seeing two of these now, I totally get why a peasant in þe olde times would freak out about this. It suddenly gets cold, your animals are freaking out, and the thing that makes your food grow is disappearing. Yeah, that's a problem.

Not only does it disappear, but it suddenly grows a lot of weird glowing hair!

I live in Dallas TX and this is the first total eclipse i remember. When totality got closer my shadow on the ground become strange, i can't put my finger on it but something about my shadow seemed different. The last minute or so increased the darkness very fast, it got wayyy darker than i was expecting. The streetlights came on, all my neighbor's porch lights came on, and I could see a star/planet next to the sun.

During partial coverings the ambient light is reduced which makes shadows sharper and clearer.

Also the reduced light means your eyes have less light to discriminate color with, resulting in ordinarily bright colors being muted or gray-ish.

Yeah, the severe color change was an interesting experience. I didn't bother trying to image it, as the fakey fakeness of the enhancing software would have "corrected" it.

Not only that, but the light source that's creating the shadow gets smaller (in terms of arc length), so the shadow becomes more crisp.

When it's a crescent shape, it's also more crisp in one direction. So if you hold up a square and make a shadow on the ground, two sides are sharp, two sides are blurry. Or if you look at your own shadow, it's a mix of sharp and blurry edges, which looks unusual.

Hi neighbor! Even with the clouds covering at the critical moment, the experience was just so one of those things you must experience yourself as you'll never get a sense of it from just someone else describing it to you. I had been reading and watching content from people that had previously experience eclipses, and even though what they describe happening happened, it's just totally different in person. I used to say this about seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time after seen pictures/video of it, but the eclipse was at least 10x that experience.

I'm thankful for the clouds clearing enough for the experience, but I really felt that the totally clear skies within minutes of totality ending was really just a slap in the face from the universe!

> I used to say this about seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time after seen pictures/video of it, but the eclipse was at least 10x that experience.

I said the same thing about seeing Tunnel View in Yosemite for the first time. It's the closest thing that I can say that describes the experience and the eclipse eclipses (heh) that.

I live north of Austin and the hour before totality we had a fair amount of clouds with the sun just peaking through, then just minutes before we reached 100% the low clouds just seemingly evaporated, temperatures dropped sharply, and every bird and frog around started singing. All the automatic lights had turned on by that time. Then totality hit and seeing the 'black hole sun' with a white ring around it was just awe inspiring. You don't know exactly how to interpret the sky, because it's kind of like pre-dawn in every direction. Sky glow is coming from every direction, and yet it's dark where you are. Finally when the sun comes back it rapidly brightens. Looking off to the north east I could see the darkness of the shadow that had been over us.

That was absolutely amazing and it was "just" a video. I wish I could get to see it again (saw it only once as a kid).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse_of_August_12,_20...

I'm planning on taking my family to Reykjavik - we went earlier this year, and it was great, and it'll be greater still with a total eclipse!

I'm planning to go there with my gf, but we're not sure how the hotel/airbnb situation will be like. Either that, or northern Spain.

It'll be worse the closer to the date it comes.

I'm worried about booking an AirBnb as I've heard of numerous cases of accommodations being canceled nearing the event as the hosts realize they can make much more money.

And a couple years later there is another one making a nice path all the way across Australia. Might be time to visit down under...

That same 2028 total solar eclipse is centred right on my city here in Dunedin, New Zealand, at least I don't have to find accommodation!

https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/in/new-zealand/otago?iso...

Queenstown looks like a good option for it too.

Fingers crossed, barring earthquakes and|or billionaire escape bunker flight pricing you out !!

https://electrek.co/2024/04/08/solar-eclipse-impact-us-grid-... ("Watch the solar eclipse impact the US grid in real time")

I was not prepared for how shocking it was to witness totality.

I've seen partial eclipses in years past and they were neat. But this was staggering. Like the sun disappeared and was replaced with a black hole.

also https://eclipse-explorer.smce.nasa.gov/

shadow puppets - nobody cares

moon shadow - everyone loses their minds

If only shadow puppets could cast astronomical radioactive plasma profiles onto a 100 mile wide audience..

Kind of cool to see it. But a bit overhyped.

Just a small distraction that keeps us “united” for a moment in time.

Small?! Actually, despite how small it looks from here on Earth, the sun is very large!

Very large?

I’ve covered that glorified fire ball with my thumb!

Once covered up today, it revealed its true color: pink. Hardly the raging fireball they make it out to be.

Did you experience totality?

I saw the 2017 eclipse and found it was way better than I expected.

yea - I was in the path of totality. Just another “experience” I checked off the ole “bucket list”.

People really got emotional about it though. People were screaming, crying. Almost a mass hysteria event.

And that's despite our scientific understanding of the phenomenon, really explains why people who lacked that understanding viewed eclipses as a bad omen.

You're totally right. This was obviously just a nasa conspiracy where they sent the moon on a different trajectory for a little bit to keep us all from noticing the aliens!

Nah, when I saw it as a kid it was amazing.

It got cold & pitch dark in the middle of a summer day.

Chickens went to sleep.

I just saw it. It felt like the exact correct level of hype. Incredible, and easily worth driving six hours for.

The image of the corona around the sun is seared into my memory now, and I want to see it again - I see why some people become "eclipse-chasers", and travel the world to experience this again.

I hope you are able to find joy in this universe. Don't let others ruin your chance at a fulfilled life.

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