Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
WCU to host eclipse party
Public invited to watch solar eclipse at free event
WEST CHESTER » When Karen Schwarz was growing up in Portland, Oregon, Feb. 26, 1979 was a magical day.
That Tuesday, Schwarz and her family watched in awe and wonder as her hometown saw the first glimpses of a total solar eclipse,
the first to be visible in the United States since 1918.
“I remember watching the sun get darker and darker until it was almost entirely dark,” said Schwartz, an associate professor of astronomy at West Chester University. “I saw the ‘diamond ring effect’ — that somewhat fiery circle around the sun’s circumference that occurs when the moon has completely engulfed it — and it was absolutely beautiful. That was my very first (eclipse), and it was awesome.”
Schwarz, the director of WCU’s Dr. Sandra F. Pritchard Mather Planetarium, says she hopes now to be able to instill a little of that feeling in both adults and children on Monday as she plays unofficial host to a free, public viewing party for the solar eclipse, that celestial event that has dominated the nation’s imagination for weeks. The event takes place on the university’s Academic Quad (the block bounded by South High Street, University Avenue, South Church Street and West Rosedale Avenue).
No tickets or reservations are necessary. The height of the eclipse is at 2:43 p.m. and the eclipse and Schwarz’s viewing party will conclude at 4 p.m.
From 1 to 4 p.m., Schwarz will have telescopes available for people to safely watch the progress of the moon as it passes between Earth and the sun. Eclipse glasses are free to the first 300 attendees beginning at 1 p.m.; none are available for sale.
Plenty of activities will help guests understand the event and learn more about our star, even if it’s cloudy. Among the activities planned are:
A huge space set up as an interactive sundial to mark the shadows made before, during, and after the eclipse. Guests can trace the shadows made by the gnomon (the centerpiece) using markers.
Spectroscopes for making rainbows without rain and learning about the visible light spectrum.
Make and take a “solar system in your pocket.”
Schwarz and science students will be on hand to answer questions and ask guests some astronomical ones as well.
The free event is rain or shine. In case of cloudy weather, activities will continue on the quad but solar viewing may not be possible. In case of rain, activities will be relocated to Ehinger Gymnasium (South Church Street at University Avenue), where a live stream of the eclipse from a different location will be shown.
Schwarz said she hopes that those who attend will view the event as a “wonderful teaching experience.”
A total solar eclipse viewable in your backyard, “is so rare,” the professor said last week. “But it’s also science, and those who come can be part of it. It shows you that science isn’t just for people in lab coats. It can really be exciting.”
“I figured if I could do for people here what I had when I was a kid, it would be worth it,” she said.
The sun, moon and Earth will line up perfectly in the cosmos on Monday, turning day into night for a few wondrous minutes, its path crossing the U.S. from sea to shining sea for the first time in nearly a century.
Satellites and ground telescopes will also aim at the sun and at the moon’s shadow cutting a swath some 60 to 70 miles wide across the land, from Oregon to South Carolina. Astronauts will do the same with cameras aboard the International Space Station. Ships and planes will also catch the action.
“It’s going to be hard to beat, frankly,” says Thomas Zurbuchen, head of NASA’s science mission office.
At the same time, researchers and the just plain curious will watch how animals and plants react as darkness falls. It will resemble twilight and the temperature will drop 10 to 15 degrees. Schwarz says some “myths” about total solar eclipses are correct, while some are not. Animals will begin nighttime routines in the middle of the day — birds singing their night songs, for example — and plants turning inward.
In Chester County, the height of the eclipse will come around 2:44 p.m., and about 75 percent of the sun will be obscured. “It won’t get totally dark. It will still be very bright,” Schwarz said. But the affect will still be noticeable. “Everything will be just a little bit off, like an underdeveloped photograph.”
Although those who want to catch a glimpse of the eclipse are warned to wear proper eye protective glasses, watch it on television, or use one of the make-it-yourself viewers, Schwarz said not to worry about pets going blind. “I don’t think dogs and cats look at the sun on normal days,” she said.
Expect four hours of pageantry, from the time the sun begins to be eclipsed by the moon near Lincoln City, Oregon until the time the moon’s shadow vanishes near Charleston, South Carolina. NASA will emcee the whole show, via TV and internet from that coastal city.
The view from the sidelines won’t be too shabby either. A partial eclipse will extend up through Canada and down through Central America and the top of South America. Minneapolis will see 86 percent of the sun covered, Miami sees 82 percent, Montreal gets 66 percent, while Mexico City sees 38 percent.
The total eclipse will last just 1 1/2 hours as the lunar shadow sweeps coast to coast at more than 1,500 mph (2,400 kph) beginning about 1:15 p.m. EDT and ending at 2:49 p.m. EDT. The sun’s crown — the normally invisible outer atmosphere known as the corona — will shine forth like a halo.
Sure, full solar eclipses happen every one, two or three years, when the moon positions itself smack dab between the sun and Earth. But these take-your-breath-away eclipses usually occur in the middle of the ocean somewhere, though, or near the sparsely populated top or bottom of the world. In two years, Chile, Argentina and the empty South Pacific will share top billing.
The United States is in the bull’s-eye this time.
It will be the first total solar eclipse in 99 years to cross coast-to-coast and the first to pass through any part of the Lower 48 states in 38 years.
For the WCU event, metered parking is available on streets throughout the university. Free parking is available only in lots marked for students, and on Aug. 21, no permit is needed. No parking is allowed in other university lots or in visitor or other specially designated spaces.
From 1 to 4 p.m., Schwarz will have telescopes available for people to safely watch the progress of the moon as it passes between Earth and the sun. Eclipse glasses are free to the first 300 attendees beginning at 1 p.m.; none are available for sale. In Chester County, the height of the eclipse will come around 2:44 p.m., and about 75 percent of the sun will be obscured. “It won’t get totally dark. It will still be very bright,” Schwarz said.