17 May 2012

[OR_liff] State Of Jefferson In Eclipse This Weekend

2819.
On this coming Sunday, there'll be an annular eclipse of the Sun that'll be the first North American continental eclipse of the 21st Century. Sometime around 4:45 PM, the shadow will pass onto the American mainland near the Oregon-California border. Oregon will be within its shadow, but only the southwestern corner - Curry, Josephine, Jackson counties.


This Google Maps interactive map view is mounted by NASA and available here.

An annular eclipse is, as the science writer for the HuffPo accurately put, no match for a total solar eclipse. When the event is fully on, due to the variations of distance from Earth that the Moon has, the Moon is far enough away so that it covers almost all of the Sun's disk, leaving a 'ring of fire' (as they dramatically like to call it) which throws enough light that, if you didn't know there was an eclipse, you probably wouldn't be aware. It's like a partial solar eclipse really.


So if you're looking for some real solar eclipse action and your here in the Portland Metro, I wouldn't haul ass to Grass Pants unless you're a real sky geek. If you're looking for that, it's going to happen on Monday, the 21st of August, 2017. The totality will cover an area from just south of Newberg to about Monroe, and the middle of the shadow will cross I-5 at around 10:15 AM PDT (9:15 AM PST)

But, this coming Sunday, the state of Jefferson will be in partial darkness, but there are some I know that say that it doesn't take an eclipse for that to happen down there.

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