Posted on 04/05/2024 6:22:23 PM PDT by DoodleBob
The solar eclipse's path of totality could shift on Monday - and now experts are urging people to travel to different spots to see the celestial event.
Amateur astronomer John Irwin released a new map of the 115-mile path from Maine through Texas which has revealed its changed by roughly 2,000 feet.
The updated calculation has suggested that people in places like Rome, New York, Effingham, Illinois, and some areas of Fort Worth, Texas will no longer be able to have a perfect view of the eclipse.
Roughly 34 million people are expected to view the eclipse, but hundreds of thousands of viewers will now be left outside the immediate path and unable to watch the event. As people prepare to travel to watch the solar eclipse, Irwin's report has suggested that the path of totality, which has been projected for months, might be slightly off.
Irwin is part of a team analyzing the solar eclipse event for the Besselian Elements, and according to the website, they reported that the adjustment accounts for 'topographic elevation both around the limb of the moon and on the surface of the Earth.'
Topographic elevation is the adjustment of how close the Earth is to the sun, accounting for mountainous regions that would slightly alter where the path of totality will be.
'By accounting for the topography of both the moon and the Earth, precise eclipse prediction has brought new attention to a tiny but real uncertainty about the size of the sun,' a NASA spokesperson told Dailymail.com.
… However, despite the reports that the path has shifted, NASA said it isn't altering its predictions.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Nothing is shifting, other than the weather.
Due to climate change
That’s right, but it’s still a wise idea 💡 to be prepared for disaster.
Oh cmon….
This is a celestial event…this screw up in mapping has nuthin’ 2 do with climate change.
However, that earthquake today, west of Manhattan….now THAT was the climate change.
One can always watch it on the internet. That’s what I do.
115-mile path from Maine to Texas. Dafuq?
Texas to Maine might be a few more miles, perhaps 3?
Bill Nye is actually in the Texas Hill Country, to watch this eclipse ... I’ve been told 👀
The physics of climate change are forever changing. It even affects the path of the moon and the sun and the position of the earth.
We’re not worthy
Maybe width, not length.
🙃
Bill Shatner is such an Effingham…
Got my welding hoods cleaned up. Checked them out. They make the sun look like a slightly greenish-yellow orb.
Turn around bright eyes 🎵
This is a nothingburger, people travel to see eclipses near the center line of a path nearly 120 miles wide, and the shifts are along the edges. Very few people would have been aware of exact locations of those edges, and in fact if you’re on the edge, you only get a few seconds of totality, not the 3-4 minutes close to the center line.
I guess the last minute differences are based on more precise observations of lunar positions which are generally known to high accuracy, but not such accuracy that the exact edges of the eclipse path were known with 100% certainty.
The people “missing” by half a mile will see almost the same as what people a half mile inside the track will see, a very brief near-darkness during which a diamond ring effect will be visible almost continuously, for about a minute. Another half mile off the edge of the track, and it will just be a case of near-total coverage but enough daylight that it won’t turn “dark” and the sunlight will be too strong to allow a view of the diamond ring (which happens because the Sun is shining through lower spots on a hilly profile of the moon’s outer limb).
It’s not looking great from about Dallas to n.w Ohio due to cloud, would say upstate NY and south Texas are best bets now (as I thought weeks ago).
Still…as a public service… Is welding helmet safe for eclipse?
I’m on the 98% line. That’s good enough for me.
Why are millions of people traveling to see darkness? Can’t they just wait for the sun to go down?
I agree in part, and dissent in part.
Yes, being off by a few miles on the edge of totality will impact only people who were planning on being on that border.
No….in that we’ve been lectured that “the science is settled” on shots, global warming, EVs, and all of their pet projects. But something like an eclipse…they get wrong.
Now, I never consider science to be settled. It’s settled, until it isn’t. That’s life.
So when these rat bastidz get it wrong, it should be bookmarked.
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