Apr 7 2024 - Solar Eclipse - The Experience

 

Is it special?  That's the question, isn't it?  There's an Illinois village that will get its second in 7 years.  Sounds lucky.  Or is it?  Thousands are expected to descend of the 600 people to have the "experience".   "You don't see a total eclipse - you experience it" It's the corona, isn't it - the shiny stuff around the dark circle.  The "Ring of Fire" is what happens during an Annular Solar Eclipse - not a total eclipse.    So on to our "experience". The sky is going to change colour/tint.  For the total Eclipse, there will be an umbral shadow.  Look at a white building and ripples or dark and light might appear, also on the ground.  Then there's Bailey's Beads which disappear one after another as the eclipse gets to totality.  Before totality is the Diamond Ring - only a single bead remains.  The last bead vanishes and you remove your solar glasses (an odd term given how flimsy ours are).  With totality is streamers of red stretching up from the chromosphere into the corona.   The big deal is the corona - and whatever shape it has.  Loops and arcs are the shapes identified.  Who else is in the sky?  Venus is expected to become visible just before totality to the lower right of the eclipsed Sun. Jupiter will be at the upper left of the eclipsed Sun.  Even Mercury, Mars and Saturn are possible to see - likely with a telescope.   Then how dark it gets is how close you are to the centreline (and a few other things) - look at the horizon for a sunrise/sunset glow. Then things start to reverse, so that means it is time to put the solar glasses back on for the diamond ring, the Bailey's beads, the shadow bands, and retreating shadow which all happen again.  You are to look at your own shadow on the ground and see that it is sharp - really sharp.  You will see the hairs on your head, for example, for those who have "hairs". Well, that is a lot of experience, isn't it.  So the promise sounds quite real and fun. And then the disconcerting question:  What if it's cloudy?  Seems a dismal story of not having the experience - a dark sky isn't that exciting to me.   I guess that means one will have to start chasing solar eclipses to get the full experience.  Greenland, Iceland and Spain are next in 2026. Isn't this a stylistic interpretation - created this in the kitchen at the last house where I could place a prism and get this intense rainbow effect with the sun.

Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Nov 24 2023 - WaWa Classic Holiday Dinner

 

Do you recall the Japanese cult classic Christmas Dinner?  They eat Kentucky Fried Chicken as a big Christmas treat dinner.  Well, Americans eat WaWa's Thanksgiving Feast in a similar cult fashion.   WaWa is a convenience store/gas station chain in the U.S.  My friend in Pennsylvania told me about the WaWa Thanksgiving dinner yesterday and I had to look it up to find out what she meant.  Here are the Google questions: Does Wawa have turkey dinner? Our hot turkey is so customizable, you can Wawa your way! Try the Hot Turkey Gobbler Bowl with a base of mac and cheese, roasted veggies, hot turkey, and tart cranberry sauce. Or our classic gobbler hoagie! We even have hot turkey dinner plates to satisfy your hunger after 4pm. What is on a Wawa turkey gobbler? For the first time this year, Wawa began offering Thanksgiving dinner platters in addition to its Gobbler — the hoagie filled with turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce that's been a staple of Wawa's fall menu since 2008. One article says: "Search Instagram, and you'll find other Gobbler posts and the configurations its fans enjoy."  One fan wrote: "I’m partial to the cold version with some of their hot honey,” Who would guess there could be such a cult classic!

Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Jan 11 2021 - It is K9

 

Canine is particularly entertaining with its representation as K9.  There are a lot of words with nine in them, but they don't all pronounce as 9 the number is pronounced.   For the record, there are 334 words containing nine. This sort of information is widely available because of Scrabble. The free dictionary lists all the words with nine in them from 15 letter words down to  five letter words.  There is one word with five letters - nines.  And what if you seem to want to name your child with "nine" in the name?  There are a lot of names with nine in the name - 38 of them.  Nine is a name in Croatia.  And don't forget that nine occurs in various languages, as demonstrated by these two jokes: What if you were trying to say the number 9, But Germany said no During my French Exam, I suddenly couldn’t remember what the number 9 was in French I immediately became very neuf-ous These are the best of yesterday's experiments with in-camera multiple exposures.  I haven't turned the the first one to black and white - this was the natural colour and light.     Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Facebook Twitter Website Email Share Tweet Forward

April 22 2020 - Earth Day Shadows

It is the 50th anniversary of Earth Day.  There's a picture of the first Earth Day, 1970 in New York City, and lots of young people are wearing masks.  We would have a similar picture today, but would be six feet apart and likely a few years older.  For Earth Day this year, our reduced impact due to COVID-19 is being shown with pictures showing the reduction of pollution, showing wild animals walking down main streets, and the song of spring birds being noticeably louder.  There are many things about this Earth Day that will become historical. Earth Day made me think about the scale of things and as I looked at a large bank of clouds was on the eastern horizon this morning, they seemed to look like a mountain range.   Did you know that mountains cast shadows into the sky? Mt. Rainier in Washington State casts a triangular shadow into the sky in a picture from the top of the mountain  HERE. Triangular shadows are not seen from objects much smaller than mountains because their shadows are not long enough. Perhaps as part of Earth Day, we should look at the Earth's shadow. The Earth casts a shadow which is viewable after sunset.  Here's the explanation:  "After sunset look eastwards. A low horizon is needed but not a volcano. As twilight deepens a dark band rises upwards from the horizon, The band is the shadow of the Earth on the atmosphere. Immediately above, where the evening air is still lit, glows a pink band called the anti-twilight arch or "Belt of Venus". The pink arises from scattered and deeply reddened sunlight mingling with the deep blues of the eastern sky. Look westwards before sunrise to watch the shadow sinking towards the horizon. The shadow is a three dimensional void of unlit atmosphere. The sky high above the shadowed air is bright because it is still sunlit and the air scatters light down to the eye. " And what about the picture of Apollo 17 astronaut Eugene Cernan's photograph of his own shadow cast on the coal black lunar surface December 1972? "His shadow, or more accurately his camera's, appears to be surrounded by a bright glow.  Cernan's shadow, like many images on the Moon's surface, is surrounded by a bright aureole.  It is an example of the "Opposition Effect". "Lunar soil has an open structure with many areas of deep shadow.  But, when looking in a direction directly away from the sun, shadows are hidden by the object casting them.   The antisolar point and the adjacent areas therefore appear brighter than elsewhere because they have more sunlit surfaces and less shadow. There are other factors that contribute to the glow, retroreflection by crystalline minerals and a phenomenon called coherent backscattering. The heiligenschein, also at the antisolar point, is a separate effect." There are no representations of the earth in my database, but there is a picture of Mount Rainier posted last September when we visited Sacramento.  The second is a piece of plastic with drew drops at a gas station.

Read past POTD's at my Blog: http://www.blog.marilyncornwell.com Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca