`AMAZING EXPERIENCE'
Calgarians bask in partial solar eclipse at viewing parties across city
Thousands of people kept their eyes to the sky on Monday, catching a glimpse of the partial solar eclipse at several events across Calgary that had unobstructed views of the solar phenomenon.
Viewing parties across the city included a pop-up hosted by the Rothney Astrophysical Observatory at the University of Calgary, another pop-up style event at Ambrose University and several events at Telus Spark Science Centre.
In Calgary, the partial eclipse began at 11:48 a.m., reached its maximum around 40 per cent coverage of the sun at 12:43 p.m., and ended at 1:38 p.m.
WATCHING THE ECLIPSE
Crowds of people flocked to the event at U of C. Despite protective glasses being in short supply, many were willing to share and allow others to see the moon obstruct a portion of the sun.
Almost all of North America was able to take in the partial solar eclipse but only a narrow strip of the continent was able to catch a total solar eclipse, where the moon lines up perfectly between the Earth and the sun, blotting out the sunlight.
Among the crowd at U of C were Levi and Talon Pederson, brothers who came from Red Deer for the viewing party and to be closer to the eclipse path, said Levi.
Levi used a star tracker to follow the sun as it moved through the sky over the course of the event, while capturing images every five minutes through a 70-millimetre telescope.
He stacks the images afterward to create a composite.
“With the eclipse last year, I did the exact same thing for about three hours there, pretty cool. Kind of looks like a cookie moving across the sun,” said Levi.
“I'm definitely an amateur astro-photographer, for sure. Mainly just the sun and the moon for me.”
Levi hopes to inspire both his brother and sister to become more into astronomy by having taken them to witness the eclipse.
Jeroen Stil, an associate professor of astronomy at U of C, said the eclipse was an amazing opportunity to share the wonder of nature and the universe with people.
“I love eclipses. I've travelled for three total eclipses, seen two, had a rainout for one,” said Stil.
Eric Hess, an astrophysics intern at Rothney Astrophysical Observatory, said this was the biggest event he's been a part of.
Hess believes eclipses bring people out of their day-to-day lives and get them to look up at the sky.
“It connects them with nature outside of just our planet,” he said. “If we could just get people interested in the sky today, that would be awesome.”
He said total solar eclipses are helpful when studying the composition of the sun.
“During a solar eclipse, if you're under the path of totality you can take a spectrum of the sun and you'll learn what the atmosphere of the sun's made of,” he said.
“Every single solar eclipse is an opportunity to learn more.”
The solar excitement also brought more than 1,000 people to Telus Spark to view the eclipse, said science connections director Zack Anderson.
Telus Spark's event kicked off with shows covering the science behind eclipses, before people got to see it first-hand. It also showed live video from NASA of the total eclipse.
“It was really inspiring to see people look. Seeing that ... there were families that pulled their kids out of school, because it's not something you get to see today,” said Anderson.
Even though the shadows of an eclipse do hit the Earth as much as two to five times per year, Anderson said it's often not near places where there's much human activity.
“The middle of the ocean, the desert, the Amazon, places like that — there's not that ability to really see it, study it, learn from it and just appreciate it.”
The total eclipse was visible in places such as Mexico for almost four-and-a-half minutes, and Niagara Falls, Ont., where totality was about three-and-a-half minutes.
The Niagara region declared a state of emergency last week to deal with the influx of visitors.
“There's a real sense of camaraderie having this amazing experience, even though we're only in like this 37 per cent coverage,” said Anderson.
The last solar eclipse to be visible in Calgary was a partial one in August 2017.
Calgary will next experience a total solar eclipse during the evening of Aug. 22, 2044, with totality lasting almost two minutes. The phenomenon only happens in any given location roughly once every 360 years, by some estimates.
Total solar eclipses have helped make some major scientific breakthroughs, including the detection of helium in 1868 and broad support for Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity in 1919.