1880: Eclipse Review

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Eclipse Review

Title text: I watched from a beautiful nature reserve in central Missouri, and it was--without exaggeration--the coolest thing I've ever seen.

Explanation

This comic is the last of five consecutive comics published in the week before and during the solar eclipse occurring on Monday, August 21, 2017 which was visible as a total solar eclipse within a band across the contiguous United States from west to east and visible as a partial eclipse across the entire contiguous United States and beyond. The other comics are 1876: Eclipse Searches, 1877: Eclipse Science, 1878: Earth Orbital Diagram, and 1879: Eclipse Birds.

The comic is another comparison graph, like 1775: Things You Learn or 1701: Speed and Danger. It contrasts how cool something sounds and how cool it actually is. It has five points on it, planetary conjunction, supermoon, lunar eclipse, partial solar eclipse, and total solar eclipse.

While the four other things than total solar eclipse are relatively close to each other on the "how cool to see" scale, the graph is not even high enough to plot the total solar eclipse point as indicated by the dotted arrow showing that this point should be way higher up. This is as opposed to leaving the point out, as Randall did with the coconut in 388: Fuck Grapefruit, where it is only mentioned in the title text. This could be an indication that if the scale had been high enough to fit the total solar eclipse point, then the rest of the points would be on the x-axis without any indication of which would be cooler.

A total solar eclipse correctly sounds like it is the coolest of the five, but it is vastly cooler to see it in person by a wide margin. It seems like Randall is trying to convince those who missed the eclipse this time to go watch in seven years when another total solar eclipse is visible in the USA.

Planetary Conjunction

In a planetary conjunction two or more planets are visible close together in the night sky. This happens relatively often because all planets lie in roughly the same plane around the sun (the Sagittal ecliptic). This looks like two big stars close to each other, and isn't particularly exciting.

Supermoon

A supermoon is a full moon or a new moon that approximately coincides with the Moon's closest approach in its elliptic orbit around the Earth. This results in a larger-than-usual apparent size of the lunar disk, but a typical human doesn't recognize the difference. Nevertheless, in recent years the press has often announced supermoons as important astronomical events. The opposite of a supermoon is called a micromoon. A "supermoon" sounds very cool, but like a planetary conjunction it's almost indistinguishable in the average night sky (see 1394: Superm*n, and this list) of other comics that have referred to the term).

Lunar Eclipse

A lunar eclipse occurs during the full moon and, like at a solar eclipse, happens only when the Moon is in the region where the orbital planes of the Moon and the Earth intersect. The Earth's shadow falls on the Moon, causing it to appear dark red. The moon doesn't generally darken completely due to some light still reaching the Moon through the outer layers of the Earth's atmosphere. As with solar eclipses, lunar eclipses occur on average once every six months, but they can be viewed by anyone who is on the night-time side of Earth during the eclipse, as opposed to only being visible from a small strip of the Earth's surface. A lunar eclipse looks noticeably different from a usual full moon, making it fairly cool.

Partial Solar Eclipse

There are three types of non-total solar eclipses. A partial eclipse occurs when the Sun and Moon are not exactly in line with an observer on Earth, and thus the Moon doesn't fully obscure the Sun. An annular eclipse occurs when the Sun and Moon do line up with an observer on Earth, but the Moon is too far away from earth to block the entire Sun. The Sun appears as a very bright ring, which is also called an annulus. A hybrid eclipse is an eclipse which is total when viewed from some parts of the earth, but is annular when viewed from others. These mixed eclipses are comparatively rare, even when compared with total eclipses. A large percentage of the continental United States experienced a partial eclipse along with the total solar eclipse on August 21st. A partial solar eclipse is quite cool, but nowhere near as dramatic as a sky-darkening total solar eclipse.

Total Solar Eclipse

The total solar eclipse is the topic of this and the four preceding comics. It occurs during the new moon, and happens only when the Sun and Moon are exactly in line with an observer on Earth and when the Moon appears large enough to fully obscure the Sun. Unlike a lunar eclipse, only a small portion of the Earth lies within the Moon's shadow at any given time, roughly a disc with a diameter of approx. 100 km. The disc moves very fast over the Earth's surface, meaning that at any given location eclipses can't last longer than a few minutes. At locations outside of this shadow-disc, in a region over a few thousand kilometers, the eclipse is partial.

In the title text Randall reveals that he had traveled to a location in Missouri (possibly the Shaw Nature Reserve) because at his home in Massachusetts the eclipse was only partial. And, without a doubt, the total solar eclipse was the coolest thing he ever has seen in his life.

Transcript

[A scatter plot with five labeled dots is drawn. The x-axis reads "How cool it sounds like it would be" and the y-axis is labeled with "How cool it is to see in person".]

[Bottom left] Planetary conjunction

[Bottom middle] Supermoon

[Low left-center] Lunar eclipse

[Low-center middle] Partial solar eclipse

[Upper right, with a dotted arrow above it pointing up] Total solar eclipse

Trivia

• While the WOW-effect happened mostly to people standing on Earth gazing at the sun, there were more astonishing pictures taken from this event: An ISS-transit in front of the partial eclipsed sun, the shadow on Earth seen from space, the astronauts also could see a partial eclipse because the orbit was above America by that time, the eclipse seen from a distance of 380,000 km in an orbit around the Moon, and an animation taken from a distance of 1,6 Mio. km by the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) located in a line exactly between Earth and Sun.

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Discussion

The air temperature drop is greater during a total eclipse than during a partial eclipse, while the other two don't affect the air temperature at all. --162.158.154.97 10:31, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

A booklet I got on the eclipse said this: "If natural wonders were on a scale of 1 to 10, a partial solar eclipse might be a 7, but a total solar eclipse would be a 1,000,000!!!" They were right. I was there. That's right, Jacky720 just signed this (talk | contribs) 10:50, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

Yeah... That's quite a lot :) http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=((1000000!)!)! (There should be 1 more "1" in the link, but it didn't catch it)kshksh (talk) 08:23, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

This is fun. 162.158.134.160 11:17, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

Is it worth having an "2017 Total Eclipse" tag for the 5 comics? 108.162.212.227 11:30, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

Yes. Be sure it includes the other comics that mentioned the eclipse, like 1868: Eclipse Flights. Dretler (talk) 12:37, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

And it should also be "2017 Total Solar Eclipse". -- Dretler (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Here we go: Category:Total Solar Eclipse 2017. Any comic missing? --Dgbrt (talk) 14:41, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

Should probably get rid of Main page, which just shows the most recent comic, and add 1779: 2017, which mentions it directly, and 1302: Year in Review, which mentions the eclipse in the title text. I think that's it. Dretler (talk) 01:11, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Both comics are updated by some IPs. The Main Page is only listed because of an embedded eclipse comic there, when the next is published and doesn't belong to this category it will be vanished. --Dgbrt (talk) 15:40, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Here's a Whatif topic: What if the earth's orbit around the sun and the moon's orbit around the earth were in the same plane so that a solar eclipse happened every month. How would that affect tides, global temperature, animal behavior, etc? Would the orbits be stable or would the gravitational tugs destabilize the orbits? Rtanenbaum (talk) 13:27, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

Solar eclipse does not affect tides significantly more than the regular movement of the Moon and the Sun, those non-eclipse events where the Moon passes almost in front of the Sun actually make tides somewhat higher on that day, because forces sum up, but a fraction of angular degree misalignment which cases a "miss" does not make much difference for the tides. The effect of blocking the Sun's radiation during eclipse happens over a very small area and for a short time therefore it is too minuscule to affect temperature on Earth, normal Sun activity cycle creates a lot larger differences in the amount of energy reaching Earth. Animal behavior during eclipse might be a little different if it was a more frequent event, animals (including two-legged naked apes) would just get used to it. -- 162.158.202.10 14:25, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

SO. TRUE. (I saw it in Salem) SilverMagpie (talk) 13:54, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

Personal impressions on the 2017 eclipse or before

Maybe we can share some personal impressions from this eclipse or similar events. I personally was in the totality zone of the 1999 solar eclipse in Germany. Weather was bad, dark clouds obscured the sun, and I almost could see nothing of the Sun at all. I was so happy living in that zone and then this. That was really annoying. It got darker, but not that much as expected because of the scattered light from the damn clouds at the horizon. The nature went quiet and automatic lights switched on, but that was it. Nothing cool at all. A much better experience I had recently in 2015, a total eclipse at the Faroe Islands but still 80% at my location. Most of the Sun was blocked, it was getting darker, nature became silent, the temperature decreased and me and all my colleagues were impressed. But of course that also wasn't that cool like a total eclipse can be. So, after a missed total eclipse at home I still have to travel to get the real cool experience.--Dgbrt (talk) 15:17, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

saw Totality from nashville

No question there's a huge different betwen partial and total. Totality is awesome, I recommend anyone to chase one if you can. After the 2 minutes I wished I could rewind it. No video comes close to the IRL experience. 162.158.75.202 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Also saw Totality from nashville

I have to echo the sentiment above. I've wanted to see a total eclipse ever since I was a small child and learned what they were, and the experience, however brief, DEFINITELY lived up to the years and years of anticipation. 162.158.79.29 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Now that's interesting. I remember an eclipse from my childhood. I won't tell you what I didn't give about it (hint: it was flying) but much more interesting: It must have been around 1970+- but I don't find an eclipse in Germany. The only sensible explanation: My memory has been fabricated. 141.101.76.226 08:43, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

There was a partial eclipse on February 25, 1971 which was about 60% in northern Germany. The next possible eclipses (for Germany) were on May 11, 1975 and April 29, 1976. I also have some vague memories when my father was sooting a piece of glass which we used to gaze at the sun. This was probably 1971 because 1975 happened early in the morning on a Sunday and 1976 I've watched in school. But I'm still not sure to which eclipse my memories do belong.--Dgbrt (talk) 14:25, 29 August 2017 (UTC)