On Sunday, May 20, 2012, I was able to provide my daughters, as well as several students, the opportunity to observe their first solar eclipse. Now granted, this wasn't a total solar eclipse where the Moon blocks the entire disk of the Sun, but partial eclipses are still rare. My last opportunity to observe even a partial eclipse was approximately 18 years ago. So what's a solar eclipse?
A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon is positioned on a direct line between the Sun and the Earth. Since the Moon is directly between the Sun and the Earth it blocks the Sun's light from reaching the Earth and casts a shadow on the Earth. The shadow cast on the Earth is quite small, so one must be at a specific location on Earth to observe the total eclipse. NASA provides an excellent map on their website illustrating the paths of a few past and future solar eclipses.
http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEatlas/SEatlas3/SE2001-25T-2.GIF
If you are outside of the total eclipse path you won't see the entire Sun blocked, but you will see part of the Sun blocked. This was the situation at my location in the Eastern U.S. time zone 11 days ago. This particular eclipse was an annular eclipse, meaning that the Moon was a bit farther away from the Earth and didn't quite block the entire disk of the Sun. If you were in parts of the southwest U.S., you would have seen an eclipse similar to the one in this image:
Notice the ring around the moon? That's the portion of the Sun that wasn't blocked. Unfortunately I live far from the southwest U.S., so only a small portion of the Moon was blocked. My sky conditions weren't great for taking pictures so what you see here are pictures I grabbed from Google.
My sky was a bit cloudy and it was very close to sunset, so we didn't get to see much through the telescope, but we saw a hint of it. My 1 year old could have cared less. She was more interested in running around and picking up rocks! My 5 year old is old enough to understand and appreciate (sort of) this event. She was very curious about looking through the telescope. Before the eclipse started we saw many sunspots on the Sun. She even asked what the dark spots were. This was my oldest daughter's first time looking through a telescopes. Although the eclipse viewing wasn't great she really enjoyed this opportunity and for that I'm glad. I figure that the more opportunities like this that I can provide her, the greater appreciation she'll have for all fields of science.
If you or your kids are interested in observing the sky through a telescope, look up your local college/university, or look for local astronomy clubs. You would be amazed at the number of observing events groups like these schedule throughout the year.
A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon is positioned on a direct line between the Sun and the Earth. Since the Moon is directly between the Sun and the Earth it blocks the Sun's light from reaching the Earth and casts a shadow on the Earth. The shadow cast on the Earth is quite small, so one must be at a specific location on Earth to observe the total eclipse. NASA provides an excellent map on their website illustrating the paths of a few past and future solar eclipses.
http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEatlas/SEatlas3/SE2001-25T-2.GIF
If you are outside of the total eclipse path you won't see the entire Sun blocked, but you will see part of the Sun blocked. This was the situation at my location in the Eastern U.S. time zone 11 days ago. This particular eclipse was an annular eclipse, meaning that the Moon was a bit farther away from the Earth and didn't quite block the entire disk of the Sun. If you were in parts of the southwest U.S., you would have seen an eclipse similar to the one in this image:
Notice the ring around the moon? That's the portion of the Sun that wasn't blocked. Unfortunately I live far from the southwest U.S., so only a small portion of the Moon was blocked. My sky conditions weren't great for taking pictures so what you see here are pictures I grabbed from Google.
My sky was a bit cloudy and it was very close to sunset, so we didn't get to see much through the telescope, but we saw a hint of it. My 1 year old could have cared less. She was more interested in running around and picking up rocks! My 5 year old is old enough to understand and appreciate (sort of) this event. She was very curious about looking through the telescope. Before the eclipse started we saw many sunspots on the Sun. She even asked what the dark spots were. This was my oldest daughter's first time looking through a telescopes. Although the eclipse viewing wasn't great she really enjoyed this opportunity and for that I'm glad. I figure that the more opportunities like this that I can provide her, the greater appreciation she'll have for all fields of science.
If you or your kids are interested in observing the sky through a telescope, look up your local college/university, or look for local astronomy clubs. You would be amazed at the number of observing events groups like these schedule throughout the year.
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