Sitting at home
– in what I would like to call
”
my
”
chair, but my dog sits in it more than I do
– I was admiring the great feat that I had just accomplished. I
hung a collage solar eclipse picture on the wall all by myself.
Sitting at home – in what I would like to call “my” chair, but my dog sits in it more than I do – I was admiring the great feat that I had just accomplished. I hung a collage solar eclipse picture on the wall all by myself. It is one that my wife, JoAnne, and I had taken in Egypt last March. And I must say, it was hung squarely to the wall.
This is starting out to sound like a story about me, isn’t it? Well, it is. After all, this is my column, and they said I could write about anything I want.
So, as I was sitting there in all my glory, I went into a small trance as my eyes took view of the picture. Almost a million things went through my mind, from preparing for the trip to seeing the Pyramids and the Nile, from trekking our way west of Cairo to witness the eclipse to coming all the way back home.
They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, but in this case it’s even more words than that. I could use a thousand words just talking about getting on the plane to depart San Jose for our destination in Egypt.
Looking at the first figure on the left of the picture, I saw the effect the Moon has on the Sun by notching out just a small piece on its bottom right-hand corner. (I know a circle doesn’t have any corners. Just work with me here). At this time, everyone was so excited because the anticipation of the event had finally began.
Going on to the second figure, one can see that the Sun is about severed in half by the Moon’s presence sitting in front of the giant ball of fire. Everyone who witnessed it saw that our surroundings were somewhat darker, and it gave us kind of an eery feeling.
In the third figure, the Sun is about 80 percent covered by our neighboring Moon. Now it was getting so dark you could see Venus and some other bright stars starting to show up in the sky. There was a little chill in the air; the birds we heard earlier were almost silent.
Then came the total eclipse – an unbelievable sight. Pictures don’t do the eclipse justice whatsoever. It is amazing what your eyes can pick up and register. Our maker knew what he or she was doing when making us.
I must be the luckiest photographer in the world. To capture the next picture (called “the diamond ring”), the timing and setting have to be perfect. You really have to know what you are doing, and it was plain to see that I didn’t.
So here I am, snapping pictures left and right, hoping to catch some glimpse of something to make me look like I knew what I was doing.
It was so interesting to have these seasoned photographers come up to me later and ask how I got this picture. They asked me, what was your exposure? What type of filter did you use? How did you get the timing down?
All I could do was tell them the truth. It wasn’t exciting nor was it what they wanted to hear, so they just walked away mumbling to themselves, “What a lucky son of a gun.” Actually, they were using other words than that, but I didn’t think I could repeat them in this column.
The last three pictures are just a reverse of the first three. The whole thing, from first contact to the end, took about two hours and 40 minutes. The total eclipse itself only lasted three minutes and 58 seconds. It was the fastest four minutes in my life, and I didn’t want it to end.
So there I was, still sitting in our chair, coming out of my small trance, and I thought, wow, I just relived the whole trip in about five seconds. That was a fast million words. I guess that is what a picture is supposed to do – tell a story.
Two of the most unknown planets in our solar system are the two large gas giants of Uranus and Neptune. They are very large in size but so far in distance that it makes both planets hard to view from the amateur astronomer’s back yard. Each has a greenish tint, making it a bit easier to distinguish from the stars. But each can be viewed with binoculars if one knows where to look.
On the night of March 13, 1781, William Herschel made history when he accidentally stumbled upon a round, greenish object in the constellation Gemini. At first, he mistakenly thought that he had discovered another comet because it was moving slowly across the sky not unlike a comet would do. Upon further analysis, Herschel realized that he had indeed discovered a planet beyond Saturn. The planet later on came to be known as Uranus, which just happens to be, in mythology terms, the Father of Saturn.
Today we know that Uranus is the third-largest planet in our solar system, behind Jupiter and Saturn. Uranus measures some 32,000 miles across. Compare that to our own Earth at 8,000 miles.
Uranus is more than 19 times further away from the Sun than the Earth. The Sun’s light takes some 8.5 minutes to get to the Earth from the Sun. At Uranus’ distance, the light from the Sun would take around 2.6 hours to reach the gassy planet.
By the end of the 18th century, astronomers were confused with the orbit of Uranus. Uranus was the only planet that did not obey the planetary rules as we knew them. The astronomers had figured that some object beyond Uranus was causing the unusual path of this planet. On the night of Sept. 23, 1846, at the Berlin Observatory, Johann Gottfried Galle discovered Neptune.
What we knew of this new planet was limited at that time. But things changed in August 1989, when Voyager 2 flew by Neptune to reveal the unknown. We now know that Neptune’s atmosphere is a colorful turquoise. Voyager’s camera revealed a dark, Earth-size spot similar to the Great Red Spot on Jupiter. Also revealed were thin irregular rings around the planet, a smaller version of Saturn’s, as well as six new moons to add to Triton and Nereid. Neptune is more than 30,000 miles across in diameter and more than 30 times further away from the Sun than our own Earth.
Right now you can find Uranus and Neptune in the constellations Aquarius and Capricornus, respectively. You can locate them yourself, or you can find the actual location of each in an astronomy magazine such as Astronomy or Sky and Telescope.
Of course, if you have a Go-To equipped telescope, which I am fortunate to have, your scope will take you right to it. It’s almost like cheating. Many of the old-timers feel if you can’t navigate around the heaven on your own, you are not doing yourself or the craft justice. I must admit, I do enjoy the star-hopping method from time to time; it certainly is more of a challenge. But the main goal here is to find your object. Who really cares how you get there?
Clear skies.
David Baumgartner is in local real estate and is an avid amateur astronomer. His Sky Watch column appears monthly.
