Cost of eclipse in lost solar power generation

That would be only a very small fraction of the cost of an eclipse..

The eclipse was fake news. Didn't happen. Bad.

Cheers

--
Clive

More than made up for by eclipse chasing tourism.

--
Regards, 
Martin Brown

The eclipse cost me a lot. Six of my employees were on the roof for half an hour or so, looking through cardboard eclipse glasses and welding glass. Well, seven including me.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

lunatic fringe electronics

You really should have taken the day off and moved onto the track of totality. The difference between a 90% partial eclipse of the sun and

100% totality is quite literally the difference between day and night.

The final sliver gives some interesting diffraction effects. TV seems to have concentrated on the diamond ring stage and failed to comment on the rather nice pink prominences at the solar limb just before re-emergence.

Everyone should try to see one if they ever get the chance. They are rare enough that it is worth making the effort if one is nearby.

It is what - about 500 miles to Madras or Salem from SF?

Plenty of eclipse chasers travelled to see it from the UK.

--
Regards, 
Martin Brown

What, the rest kept working? Missed the party?

--
 Thanks, 
    - Win

It's a steep climb up a ladder through a trap door to the roof. Lots of people decline to try it.

And it was foggy.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

lunatic fringe electronics

My friend has a small farm in Tennessee which was directly under the centerline of the totality. That coupled with the fact that her farm is indicated on Google maps resulted in several people contacting her about viewing the eclipse from her place. So we laid out tape along the path of the centerline and everyone had a party together.

--

Rick C 

Viewed the eclipse at Wintercrest Farms 
On the centerline of totality since 1998 
O)

I got to see the "snakes" which apparently are caused by the features of the moon impacting the light path, opps, that's what I was told, but looking it up they don't seem to be sure what causes them.

--

Rick C 

Viewed the eclipse at Wintercrest Farms 
On the centerline of totality since 1998 
O)

TV appears to concentrate on the "dumb viewer" who turns on the TV only for 5 minutes and needs to get all information in that time.

It is unbelievable how much they are talking during totality and how often they repeat the same things they have already explained 25 times before the actual event.

Well, there's always overtime if you feel the need to retaliate.

My landlord and rental agent don't allow anyone on the roof unless it has something to do with repairing the roof, HVAC, or antennas. The roofer claimed that people walking on the roof is what caused some previous leaks and insisted that everyone stay off the roof if possible.

Here's what ADS-B/Mode S showed for air traffic over central Oregon after the eclipse. Looks like just about anything that could fly was in the air during the eclipse. The smoke and haze from various fires topped out at 10,000 ft. Oxygen is required for the pilot above

14,000 ft. Therefore, most of the small planes were flying between 10K and 14K feet, which is rather cramped. To the best of my limited knowledge, there were no collisions. Whether this was due to superior technology, superior flying skills, or pure blind luck, is unknown.

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

Looked great in western KY. Clouds just began to threaten the view, but were too slow to cause trouble! :-)

Apparently MO and NB got screwed. :(

WY got screwed in a different way: Casper is a tiny city in the middle of high desert, and some ~100k-ish people wanted to descend upon it. They closed the city except by permit only -- and they had stopped issuing permits a few months ago...

They got a truly amazing view, though:

Whoever got into town, was very lucky indeed!

Re: solar, on my way there, I drove past a small solar farm in IN. Just a few MW, part of the local utility, or coop or whatever it is exactly. They weren't in totality, but likely lost a couple bucks on account of clouds and partial eclipse. I don't think anyone noticed. :)

Tim

-- Seven Transistor Labs, LLC Electrical Engineering Consultation and Contract Design Website:

Oops. I forgot to include the link: Also, aircraft tiedown space was at a premium at the small airports.

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

I wonder how they managed to see anything. Visibility straight up is usually not very good on small planes.

Let's see:

$500 - Day off work $ 40 - 20 gal gas (300m) $ 30 - Binoculars $ 70 - Meals Priceless - Awesome picture of a cloud

You really need magnification to see the prominances well. They're not about tell people to use binoculars to look at the sun. BTW, the sun was really quiet so they were rather disappointing, IMO. During the '70 eclipse, they could be seen all the way around the disk.

It was only a 150mi drive for us but it took the entire day. We left home at 8:30AM and didn't get back until 10:30PM.

This was over central Oregon. The elevation angle wasn't very high:

27.8 deg to 51.8 deg, with 40.3 deg at totality. One can't see much through the doors because the wings are in the way, but through the windshield, the viewing angle should be ok.

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

OK. Thanks.

Still a nope for me. Under VFR, aircraft are segregate by direction:

VFR cruising altitude rules in the US and Canada

In the US, there are specific VFR cruising altitudes, based on the aircraft's course, to assist pilots in separating their aircraft while operating under visual flight above 3,000 ft above the surface (AGL) but below 18,000 ft Mean Sea Level (MSL). Unofficially, most pilots use these rules at all levels of cruise flight. FAR 91.159[3] states that any aircraft:

On a magnetic course of 0-179 degrees shall fly at an odd thousand ft MSL altitude +500 feet (e.g., 3,500, 5,500, or 7,500 ft); or

On a magnetic course of 180-359 degrees shall fly at an even thousand ft MSL altitude +500 feet (e.g., 4,500, 6,500, or 8,500 ft).

This is difficult to follow if you are circling. If you are straight and level on 0 or 180, you can still get t-boned by someone on a reciprocal heading. Or by someone who is not following the rules. This has nearly happened to me on several occasions. I confess. I have also done the same thing on other occasions. One example is when I was in a military restricted zone and a squadron of F-16's came down from 30 thousand feet and past just by my left wing. Terrifying, but they knew what they were doing. Boy, they go fast.

Now look at whaat happens at totality. You've got your welder's helmut on, so you can't see anything. You are flying around in darkness, and the lights go out.

What a stupid idea.

(...)

Stupid perhaps but then there were no midair collisions. That's because most pilots were busy flying the airplane, while a passenger was doing the photography. The situation was obviously too dangerous for pilots to do much in the way of screwing around. I wasn't there, but I don't believe any pilot would be dumb enough to wear dark glasses or fly on autopilot in such a crowded airspace. I don't think anyone would be flying in circles, but rather heading 120 deg true to follow the sun.

Some pilots may have been using ADS-B apps for collision avoidance and to keep track of other aircraft, which probably prevented some collisions. I suspect that some apps have proximity and collision prediction features.

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558