Annular Solar Eclipse, Oct. 14, 2023
- Thread starter ChrisC
- Start date
tseeb
Well-known member
I think @Tony Crocker was planning to see it from Santa Fe ski area. We drove from So. Tahoe to Cosgrove rest stop less than 20 miles before Winnemuca. Eastbound I-80 was busy and many people were parked along frontage roads on way. Cloud cover was supposed to break up at 9 but didn’t look like it would so we drove back to Mill City, then went a couple of miles N towards Tungsten where we could see sun. We saw some of eclipse between and through breaks in the clouds, but would have been better with clearer sky. Looking SW. Note snow on peak. Many big lenses.
Rest stop crowd looking NE towards Winnemuca.
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Yes we viewed the annular eclipse from the Vista Grande Overlook about a mile below Ski Santa Fe. Numerous eclipse chasers were hosted by Michael Zeiler, Santa Fe resident and eclipse cartographer. We skied with him here in March 2019.
Vista Grande has a wide and level parking area with room to set up gear.
Eclipse weather analyst Jay Anderson is in the foreground.
View over Santa Fe toward Albuquerque:
Sandia Mountains are in center background.
The Sunspotter uses 3 mirrors and a lens (bright light at top of triangle) to project an image of the sun.
The image is sharp enough to show sunspots.
Crescent shadows are projected on some of these aspen trees.
Crude picture through my eclipse glasses:
Our viewing spot was deliberately chose at the northern edge to prolong the Baily's Bead edge effects. Judy Anderson and Steve Bedingfield got some very impressive pictures, which we will hopefully get copies later. We never had a continuous photosphere ring; it was always broken by moon peaks and beads. Some of the pictures show a thin chromosphere line connecting the bright crescent ends.
Ski Santa Fe's road was in peak fall foliage season.
Vista Grande has a wide and level parking area with room to set up gear.
Eclipse weather analyst Jay Anderson is in the foreground.
View over Santa Fe toward Albuquerque:
Sandia Mountains are in center background.
The Sunspotter uses 3 mirrors and a lens (bright light at top of triangle) to project an image of the sun.
Crescent shadows are projected on some of these aspen trees.
Crude picture through my eclipse glasses:
Our viewing spot was deliberately chose at the northern edge to prolong the Baily's Bead edge effects. Judy Anderson and Steve Bedingfield got some very impressive pictures, which we will hopefully get copies later. We never had a continuous photosphere ring; it was always broken by moon peaks and beads. Some of the pictures show a thin chromosphere line connecting the bright crescent ends.
Ski Santa Fe's road was in peak fall foliage season.
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ChrisC
Well-known member
Wow! Lots of driving.
You could have been in Black Rock City / Burning Man with that effort.
tseeb
Well-known member
It was a lot of driving, over 400 miles as we returned via Reno (longer than going through Dayton and joining I80 at Fernley), then visited friend who built house on 2 acres E of Minden with great view of Sierra including some of Heavenly's NV side and Monument to Job's Peak. At least NV gas was as low as $4.29 a gallon and they don't seem to charge extra for credit card that gives me 4% cashback.
Black Rock City was not in the Ring of Fire and to get to it going that way would have meant driving to near Lund Petrified Forest which is longer than to rest stop we went to that had the advantage of rest room for my wife. But it would have been nice to see Pyramid Lake on way to Black Rock.
I saw weather was clear in Ely, but we would have had to left much earlier and not done it as a day trip. Friend of friend send him this picture from Battle Mountain, 75 miles further E than we went on I80.
For a partial or annular eclipse, thin clouds like ChrisC and snowave had are desirable for photography.
One of the eclipse chasers we expected to see in Santa Fe, Evan Zucker, drove farther east to Lamesa, Texas, which was also near the northern edge:
One of the eclipse chasers we expected to see in Santa Fe, Evan Zucker, drove farther east to Lamesa, Texas, which was also near the northern edge:
Here it is from Stephen Bedingfield:
Notice also the large solar flare is in just the right place along the edge. The picture was taken unfiltered to capture these phenomena. The glare around the rest of the Sun should make it obvious that it would be unsafe to attempt this view naked eye.