Pen in Hand: Not a ring of fire, but still an interesting eclipse | CPT PPP Coverage

Cryptopolytech (CPT) Public Press Pass (PPP)
News of the Day COVERAGE

200000048 – World Newser
•| #World |•| #Online |•| #Media |•| #Outlet |

View more Headlines & Breaking News here, as covered by cryptopolytech.com

Tehachapi residents who were outside on Saturday morning, Oct. 14, at around 9:15 a.m. might have noticed something strange: the Sun was partially blocked by clouds. Except there were no clouds. It was, of course, a solar eclipse, and one that has been eagerly awaited by astronomers, skywatchers and celestial events enthusiasts for a couple of years.

The phenomenon was known as a “ring of fire” eclipse, because of the effect created by the Moon passing in front of the Sun. Solar eclipses are caused by the Moon temporarily blocking the Sun from view to observers in certain areas of the Earth, with the Moon casting its shadow on our planet’s surface.

An entire eclipse, from the time the Moon begins to obscure a tiny portion on one side of the Sun, until it reaches the midpoint and blocks the Sun, and then it finally moves completely away from the other side of the Sun, can last for several hours.

However, the time when it is fully lined up and in front of the Sun only lasts from a few seconds to up to as long as 12 minutes or so.

Saturday’s eclipse was of an uncommon type. Most solar eclipses are either partial or total, but the Oct. 14 event was a third type called an annular eclipse, which produces the ring of fire effect mentioned earlier. This is happens when the Moon goes in front of the Sun but doesn’t block it out entirely, leaving a bright glowing ring of light around the edges of the dark moon. These annular eclipses only happen every one or two years.

The viewing area from the ground with the total ring of fire effect is fairly narrow, only about 100 miles wide. On Saturday, that was a band stretching from southern Oregon down through the American West to southern Texas. This route is called the path of annularity, and skywatchers had made plans and reservations a year in advance to be in the path of annularity at the right time, sometimes in remote areas of Utah or New Mexico.

Here in the Tehachapi Mountains, we were several hundred miles west of the path of annularity, but we still got to experience a very noticeable eclipse.

When solar eclipses happen, I like to go outside and look near the shade of trees for the distinctive little crescent moon shadows on the ground or on buildings that result when the eclipse is underway. These don’t require any special viewing glasses, and they seem simultaneously familiar — just leaf shadows — and yet are odd and disorienting, because of their funny shape.

The Moon’s shadow travels fast over the Earth’s surface at about 1,000 miles an hour. The view of the Oct. 14 eclipse in the U.S. began at 9:13 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time in Oregon, and ended in Texas at 12:03 Central Daylight Time, which was 10:03 by our time.

My friend Toshimi Kristof in Bear Valley Springs photographed the event, as she did the lunar eclipse earlier this year. Toshimi said that she used basically the same set-up with her camera, mounted on a tripod, as she did with the lunar eclipse, but on Saturday she had a sun filter over her lens.

Toshimi made an interesting composite photo using images she took every five minutes during the spectacle, from about 30 minutes into the eclipse, at 9:04, until to 9:44, which was about 30 minutes until the eclipse ended.

Millions of people in different countries enjoyed watching some aspect of the eclipse, and it was a fun diversion at a time when heavy news and tragic events seem to be dominating our sensory input. I hope you remembered to check it out, and here are some photos for another look.

Have a good week.

Jon Hammond has written for Tehachapi News for more than 40 years. Send email to [email protected].