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Question on the eclipse-or more correctly- the color

Posted by $ BobCat 6 months ago to Science
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Having driven 400 miles round trip for 4 minutes of spectacular totality on a clear southern Missouri sky, I'm left pondering...
" if we normally think of the Sun as being yellow in daily observation and definition then why, when the Sun starts to emerge from it totality slumber, is the first glimpse of light a Brilliant White..."
I'm just pondering out loud.


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  • Posted by DrZarkov 6 months ago
    The spectrum of light we see is affected by atmospheric particulates that absorb part of the visible light frequency. The sun viewed from the ISS is definitely a white color, but that changes as the light passes through the atmosphere. When the sun is very near the horizon, the light passes through more of the atmosphere, resulting in a color shift to a reddish tone.
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  • Posted by mhubb 6 months ago
    different parts of the Sun are at different temps

    the Corona is much hotter for reason not fully understood
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    • Posted by mhubb 6 months ago
      the magnetic field of the Sun gets all twisted as different parts of the Sun rotate at different rates (if i am remembering correctly, the Poles vs the Equator, been a while)
      this is what causes the massive ejections of matter from time to time, can put the Earth at risk for massive Coronal Ejections and send the Gen-Zers into panic when their phones die from the EM effect (in only...)

      the Sun is also getting hotter over time, in about 500 million years it will be too hot for us to live on the Earth, we either need to move the Earth out from the Sun or we need to move from the Earth, if we are still alive (not taking bets on that)
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    • Posted by mccannon01 6 months ago
      Thanks, mhubb. This explains the white diamond. Even though the eclipse happened right above my house the sky was so cloudy I was deprived of the main event except the darkness and the cloud cover turned a brilliant white ring lit by the "diamond". I will not forget that effect. Amazing.
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      • Posted by fairbro 6 months ago
        At the 2017 eclipse in Nebraska, it was overcast, too, but at the penultimate moment a little window opened up overhead just as the moon slipped into place.

        You were not "deprived," but blessed. It came right over your house! (The 9/11 terrorist plane that hit the Pentagon came right over my house (in Arlington)). At treetop level.

        The cloud ring effect sounds incredible.

        I was in Elmira NY in 1959 ? It went total just as the sun peeked above the horizon on Jerusalem Hill. Then it got dark, then it got light again. Parents had gone to work, at a factory called the "Eclipse." LOL! I called my big sister, she was too busy listening on the big console radio to her heart-throb, Elvis Presley. At the bus stop, I was like 'Eclipse! Eclipse!" while the other kids were like "What's an eclipse?" At school the teacher gave me a perfunctory pat on the head for knowing what astronomy was.

        I call it the "Day of 2 Sunrises".

        Yes, you will remember it always. The temperature drop, the sounds (or hushed silence) the sights, the colors, the emotion...like a Saturday morning in an endless Summer vacation when you fling open the front door, and announce to the world, "I can do anything!"
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        • Posted by mccannon01 6 months ago
          Sounds like you had an excellent experience in Elmira! Memorable - yes, the temperature drop was quite noticeable. I was 7 in '59 and living in Rochester and don't remember the eclipse - probably didn't effect my area or I was too busy doing whatever a 7 year old does.
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          • Posted by fairbro 6 months ago
            It was almost like pre-dawn, you know, before the sun actually rises, it is still somewhat dark. Not very noticabele. One map has it coming in over Buffalo, going SE. Another map has it startIng east of Binghamton.
            Looks like everyone with an astronomy website has copied the same map, which is a little fuzzy on where and how it originates.
            My uncle lives in Spencerport, a couple miles from Lake Ontario I wanted to fly to Elmira, rent a car and drive up there, but there were no rental cars available anywhere in upstate NY two months out from the eclipse. But a couple days day before I see there are rental cars for rent again, but a 35-minute layover in Detroit, no, I am not going to run through the airport, that's too narrow a window .

            Played keyboards with "The Purple Heart" in Rochester. We were the backup band on a bill with Frank Zappa, at the War Memorial in Rochester in 1967 (?). Was at a partty afterwards, about 100 people packed into a house. I found myself in a circle of people, passing around a joint. I went to pass it to Frank and my guitar player elbowed me "Frank don't do that stuff.".True, he was always getting new band members when he discovered anyone doing drugs. A few minutes later, blue and red flashing lights were swirling throughout the house, and everybody scrammed, I stayed on Lyell Avenue with Artie, the guitarist, and fell in love with his sister, Teri, but alas...We went to NYC and were playing on 45th Street in Manhattan, and had a possible breakthrough gig worked out for Vegas but the band broke up after all our instruments were stolen. I still dream about my dream girl, sweetTeri.
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            • Posted by mccannon01 6 months ago
              Nice story, thanks for sharing. I lived in Spencerport in the early '70s and now live between Spencerport and Rochester. I always liked that town and still do. My wife and I both like grocery shopping there and we have friends there as well as some family.

              I waited until I was almost 69 to take my first piano (keyboard) lesson and just turned 72 and am still trying to "get it down". I'm sticking with it and hope to play something really decent before I turn 80, LOL! Sorry, I don't remember "The Purple Heart", but of course I recall Zappa.

              One other connection is your mention of Elmira. I've only been there a few times, but my ancestry in NY begins there after the Rev War when my ancestor was granted land in the Elmira area as recompense for his service in the Continental Army. As far as I can tell my family left there in 1830, but a street in Elmira still bears my family name.
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              • Posted by fairbro 6 months ago
                Is it McCann's Blvd? McKinnon St?

                There were only a few "long hairs" (hippies!) in Elmira in the late 1960's. We used to gather in Wisner Park in downtown on the weekends There was a handsome blond kid from Westside (the prosperous part of town). He stopped the drugs and his parents helped him, at 16 (he had dropped out of school) open up a mod clothing store bordering the park. Once our band went there and got the latest fashions - the paisley shirts with white borders and cuffs, and Tommy also let our rock band (we specialized in Rolling Stones songs) practice in the loft above the store.

                I was invited to Florida so I grabbed the chance to get out of Elmira, and I bounced around, played with many groups, even for a while with Mercy "Love Can Make You Happy"), they were doing Holiday Inns at the time. In the 70's and 80's I would drive back to Elmira to reconnect with family and my buddy Carl was always referring to "Hill-Finger". Finally I asked him, who are you talking about? "Tommy Hilfiger." The blonde kid we knew in the park had become a fashion designer billionaire.

                You can get a keyboard (I prefer Yamaha's tone over Casio for the nice pipe organ sound) on the cheap at auctions or yard sales, and with the background drum beats and bass runs set up, make yourself sound like a whole rock (or country, jazz whatever) band playing. I would love to get a real piano in the house, when I clear up some space. My dad had me and my sister taking piano lessons when I was in Kindergarten. The teacher would always say, hold your hand on the piano, not flat, but like you are gripping a baseball...
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                • Posted by freedomforall 6 months ago
                  Thanks, fairbro, for the nostalgia. 👍
                  It's great to hear such lively stories from our past.
                  These are a few things the current cell-phone youth are missing.
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                  • Posted by fairbro 6 months ago
                    It's today's tech, there's cyberspace and virtual reality, which of course you know if you watch/read/listen "the news". The key to understanding is still best based on face-to-tace communication.

                    Now if only the planet's leaders could get it through their thick heads that there can be no agreements without understanding, and no understanding without communcation!
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                • Posted by mccannon01 6 months ago
                  McCann's it is.

                  My keyboard story begins a number of years ago when the organist for my lodge became ill and eventually passed away. There was nobody around that could play so there was no more Star Spangled Banner to open our meetings and I missed the organist and his playing. He was a good guy and missed by all. After his passing the organ, a dual manual Hammond M3 (not B3) built in 1957 with one of those big Leslie speaker systems, fell silent for several years and I finally decided I would turn it on and learn to play it. I picked up a Yamaha P225 keyboard for $25 at a flea market to practice on at home and signed up for piano lessons. Meanwhile, I opened up the back of Hammond and found an owners manual (looked hand typed!) tucked in the back and found out how to fire it up. I also found out it had to be oiled with a special oil before running the tone wheel motor so I got the oil and followed directions. I waited the prescribed 14 days for the oil to soak in (remember this thing hasn't been used in years) and... away we go. I fired it up and all the tubes lit and the motor spun. About one minute later it all warmed up and I started pressing keys. It sounded awesome!!!! The problem is, I couldn't play a damned thing at the time, but holy smokes the sound!!!! I discovered all the keys worked, but some of the slide bars didn't work in some positions - either dirt got in or they were worn in some spots. Right now I have them set so they all work and I will leave them alone for now. About a year later I could play a decent National Anthem on it - crashed and burned due to stage fright the first few times playing live - very embarrassing but the guys were supportive and gave plenty of encouragement to keep going.

                  At home I now have a Nord Stage 3 and a second keyboard (X8 Pro) as a MIDI controller for the B-side on the Nord and a pair of EV 12s mounted on stands left and right. I can simulate the Hammond for sure, LOL, and a virtually infinite variety of other voices. I have a long way to go to be really any good, but it's a labor of love and I'm having a lot of fun in these golden years.
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                  • Posted by fairbro 6 months ago
                    That's pretty cool. you taught yourself to play. We had an M3 when I played with Mercy. It was a lot of moving for gigs, set up and breakdown, but the tone, yes, it was wonderful. Another band, they took the top off the Leslie unit and exposed the two "horn-like" treble speakers, painted them day-glo, so the audience and dancers could see the speakers whirling fast or slow. You can even just press down one note, and turn the Leslie on, like the organ solo in "Soul Sacrifice" by Santana. But not in church of course! There is a great video of Santana playing "Soul Sacrifice" on youtube. At about 4:30, there is the second short organ solo, he varies the Leslie (vibrato) from slow to fast, nice, but that version has a shorter organ solo than the album Carlos is still playing, saw him in NYC in 1969, in DC in 1990-something and he played in Kansas Cioty here in 2022.
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  • Posted by $ Snezzy 6 months ago
    Also, our perception of color is complicated. I cannot go into the details, but think how our color vision is different from that of other animals. We see light and hear sound over an extremely wide range of intensity, where (shifting into physics) a logarithmic scale proves to give us better understanding than a linear one.
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  • Posted by katrinam41 6 months ago
    The totality happened right over my house, too. I sat on my front porch watching the park across the street fill up with families and picnic supplies. As the moment of totality drew closer, even the children quieted down. Birds started their settle-for-the -night chirps. A tiny sliver of sun abruptly vanished and just as suddenly the diamond ring appeared and was gone. I gasped just like the crowd across the street when that amazing ring of corona blazed out without touching the darkness one whit. Solar lights in my garden flashed into life. Hearing the families oohing and ahhing and excited children (and a few adults) shouting "look at that!", gave me hope that as a country we're not totally brain-dead yet. It was magnificent. All of it.
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  • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 6 months ago
    The sun is no longer yellow like it was when Oldugly was a kid. It was burning Hydrogen then. Then it's fuel changed, like all stars it started burning helium. It's a cycle.
    That's all I remember, bobcat.
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  • Posted by fairbro 6 months ago
    I love this day off from the media and the cauldron of misemotion spewing outward from DC.

    It's a spiritual day. Closer to God? Maybe like, I know the universe is infinite beyond imagining, me and my fellow human beings, the animals, the birds, the fish, the ocean, the trees, the grass, the Earth, we are all part of this incredible whole?

    It's nice to know who's really in charge of the planet. The Big Guy. Not the 10% jerk "big guy" the Real BIG GUY.

    Not all the politicians, dictators, religious zealots, woke mobs and all the armies of the world combined could move this cosmic event one inch nor alter its timing by a second.

    Hoping this will serve as the cornerstone to mark the end of the world as we knew it.

    An end to solving disagreements through war.

    A new beginning. A New Paradigm.

    A planet based not on violence, but on communication and understanding.
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