SOL- STOPPER Excitement builds over Monday’s solar eclipse
The first solar eclipse to cross the entire continental United States in 99 years is three days away and sky gazers from Woonsocket to Pawtucket to Coventry are busy preparing for the celebration of the century.
On Monday, Aug. 21, a total eclipse will cross the entire country, coast-tocoast, for the first time since 1918. Weather permitting, the entire continent will have the opportunity to view an eclipse as the moon passes in front of the sun, casting a shadow on Earth’s surface.
Lori DeCesare, assistant director of the Jesse M. Smith Memorial Library in Burrillville, says the library has spent weeks planning for its solar eclipse viewing party Monday from 1:30 to 4 p.m. The party takes place on the river walk behind the library where solar viewing glasses and pin-hole eclipse viewers will be made available for the big celestial moment.
“We, like many other libraries, are amazed at the interest this eclipse has generated and are excited at the opportunity to provide eclipse glasses to attendees provided through the STARNet program,” she said. “Library programming for patrons of all ages is at the heart of the Jesse M. Smith library and we see this event as a fantastic way to culminate a summer of successful programs here at the library.”
Library patrons will also be able to create their own pinhole viewers on a smaller scale using index cards, as well as participate in children’s activities in the Children’s Department of the library. Mini moon pies (round chocolate cakes) donated by MoonPie in Tennessee will be distributed to
children attending the eclipse party, while they last.
“I had contacted the company requesting a donation earlier in the summer expressing the idea that eating moon pies during an eclipse would be a fantastic way to celebrate this celestial event and they agreed,” DeCesare said.
DeCesare says she’s also looking forward to trying out the 4-foot long pinhole viewer with a cardboard tube she made herself using a concrete forming tube purchased at Home Depot.
“I read that the longer the tube, the better the view, so I got one that’s almost as tall as I am,” she laughed.
The Weaver Public Library in East Providence is also holding a solar eclipse viewing party Monday from 1:30 to 4 p.m.
“We’re inviting everyone to join us on the Weaver lawn for a celebration and viewing of the eclipse,” said Library Director Eileen Socha.
The library will be giving out free eclipse viewing glasses to the first 400 people to arrive. There will also be live music courtesy of the Jesse Liam Band from 2 to 4 p.m., face painting and raffles, and food trucks by Gastros and Erm Cupcakes.
The Pawtucket Public Library is hosting its viewing party from 1:30 to 3 p.m. on the library’s front steps where free viewing glasses will be made available while supplies last.
“We’ve received hundreds of phone calls from people looking to see if they can get viewing glasses from us in advance because those places that were selling them are now sold out,” said a library employee. “We’ve been telling people that we only have so many and that they will be given out first come, first serve on Monday.”
In preparation for the eclipse, the library Wednesday hosted a presentation by Francine Jackson from Skyscrapers Inc., who discussed safety tips for observing the eclipse and some of the myths and folklore surrounding this astronomical phenomenon.
This month, more than 2 million pairs of eclipse glasses at nearly 5,000 libraries all over the nation were given away to ensure viewers enjoy the eclipse safely. The project, supported in part by Google, NASA, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and National Science Foundation, falls under the National Center for Interactive Learning and its STAR Library Education Network, which connects libraries with STEM programming and manages the library eclipse program.
Bellingham Public Library officials say they’ve been inundated with phone calls over the past few days from people looking for viewing glasses. The limited quantity of glasses the library did have was distributed on Thursday on a first-come, first-served basis.
The Coventry Public Library ran out of the 1,000 solar eclipse glasses it had, but will have some available the day of the eclipse from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. for those who wish to view the eclipse at the library.
An eclipse viewing party will also be held at the Blackstone River and Canal Heritage State Park in Uxbridge, from 1 to 4 p.m. Free viewing glasses will be available at that event, as well.
A total solar eclipse occurs when the disk of the moon appears to completely cover the disk of the sun in the sky. On Monday, the eclipse will cut across the entire United States. And wherever you are, you will be able to see it. Even though the “totality” – the area where the sun is completely blocked out by the moon – is only 70 miles wide, the whole country (even Alaska and Hawaii) will experience a partial eclipse.
In Woonsocket and most of northern Rhode Island, the eclipse will peak at 2:45 p.m., when the moon obscures 64.7 percent of the sun. The eclipse will start around 1:30 p.m.; reach its max in Rhode Island around 2:40 p.m.; and then end at around 4 p.m.
“During a partial eclipse, the face of the moon will appear to take a bite out of the sun,” says Jeff Padell, a member of Skyscrapers, Inc., a group of amateur astronomers who share a love of the sky.
Eclipses pose a bit of a dilemma for sky watchers, he says. Aside from the few minutes of totality, when the moon completely covers the sun, you can’t actually look at the sun directly without hurting your eyes.
“When viewing a partial eclipse, observers must use eye protection at all times,” says Padell, adding partial eclipses can be observed indirectly by projection, in which viewers watch the eclipse on a screen.
“These can be easily constructed at home with a few, simple materials such as a piece of paper and cardboard box,” he says. “As I kid, we made a simple version of the solar eclipse viewer with two stiff pieces of paper. All you do is punch a small, clean pinhole in one piece of paper and let the sunlight fall through that hole onto the second piece of paper, which serves as a screen, held below it. You use it with your back to the sun. The sunlight passes over your shoulder, through the pinhole, and forms an image on the cardboard screen beneath it.”
Padell says that in astronomical circles there is no greater, more spectacularly stellar event than a total solar eclipse.
“This is going to be very big,” he says.
NASA is live-streaming the eclipse for four and a half hours, beginning at 11:45 a.m.; and the Weather Channel is kicking off its live coverage at 6 a.m. and continuing throughout the day with dispatches from seven locations along the “path of totality.”
It’s going to be a big day also for Skyscrapers members at Seagrave Memorial Observatory in Scituate where safe solar viewing will be available through standard white-light solar-filtered telescopes as well as hydrogenalpha bandbass filters.
Skyscrapers was founded in 1932 by Dr. Charles H. Smiley of Brown University. The society incorporated in 1936 and purchased the observatory once owned by noted amateur astronomer Frank Evans Seagrave.
“Live-streamed webcasts from locations experiencing totality will be shown in the meeting hall and solar eclipse viewers will also be available,” says Padell. In the event of cloudy weather, the observatory will still show live webcasts from total solar eclipse locations throughout the United States. “Seagrave Observatory has limited parking and it will be first come, first served or as people leave we can let another car in,” he said. “We will also have solar astronomers on hand to answer questions and there will be solar images for sale to benefit Skyscrapers, Inc.”
A total eclipse occurs once on average every 18 months somewhere around the world. However, for it to occur in a single location is extremely rare – only once in every 375 years on average. This is why a total eclipse is considered to be a once-in-a-lifetime event.
“It really is going to be something special because for the first time since 1918, the totality of the eclipse will cross the entire U.S. mainland,” Padell said. “