[Seth-Trips] Partial solar eclipse today

[Ben Hartshorne]

Since we're trading stories, I booked it up to my friend Sheyna (who is
living in Wilde House).  The bike up from work was awesome!  I went
straight up Dwight, and got to see all the trees shading over the
street, with nothing but thousands of skinny crescents on the pavement.
At all the stop lights, I whipped the inside of a floppy disk, and with
it between my sunglasses and the sun, it was almost enough darkness to
shade my eyes.  I don't know if it actually blocked the nasty IR.  

But when I got up to Sheyna's, she had a piece of arc welding glass we
looked through.  That thing is so dark!  I couldn't see _anything_ but
the sun through it.  But Oh, what a View!  It was a beautiful deep gold
through the shaded glass, and dark enough you could just sit there
watching it for as long as you wanted.  And since it was arc welding
glass, it blocked all the UV and IR, since that's apparently what arc
welders put out too.  :)  

She got it from Prof. Filipenko.  It seems that every time there's an
interesting stellar event, he goes out and orders a box of arc-welding
glass.  At $2/plate, it's not too bad.  Sheyna being in Astro, managed
to pick one up.  I highly recommend it 10 years from now when there's
another nice eclipse.  Unfortunately, it seems there won't be one that
blocks out quite so much of the sun for at least 100 years (in the bay
area).  We'll have to organize a trip next time to somewhere else.  

Thanks for the heads up, Seth!  (although I think I got 4 different
announcements...  It seems some people know I like stellar events)

-ben

p.s. Seth, Sheyna sends her greetings.

-- 
Ben Hartshorne     benAThartshorneDOTnet     http://ben.hartshorne.net
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