Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The most accurate map for August 21’s total solar eclipse

nasaviz.gsfc.nasa.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 176 posts

Re: The most accurate map for August 21’s total solar eclipse

#11

Post by maxxxxx »

JPKab wrote: post #8
wyldfire wrote: post #2

I heard from a co-worker who plans to travel to Oregon that some of the hotel rooms in the path of the umbra are sometimes > 2-3k USD for the night(s) prior to the eclipse.

I think Oregon is a bad spot to view it. The weather (yes, even in summer) is too unpredictable and it's too close to populated coastal areas. Wyoming is the way to go, or western Nebraska. Don't expect to get hotels, but camping on a rancher's land is easy, and the arid climate in the summer minimizes chances of cloud cover.

What do you think of Grand Teton? I will in Yellowstone that week. I am not sure if we should go do Grand Teton or Nebraska for the eclipse. Ideally I want to hike somewhere for a few miles to avoid the crowds.

Re: The most accurate map for August 21’s total solar eclipse

#12

Post by dekhn »

leblancfg wrote: post #7

Would love to hear how they generated the shadow contours from the Moon to the Earth's surface!

it's projection geometry. You create a geometry object with the earth's surface shape. Another with the moon's surface shape. Then, a light source that emits from a sun's shape. All objects are placed at the appropriate distances, and made to rotate and translate through space according to normal orbits.

Then, you project the light from the sun onto the earth, with the moon in-between. This creates the 2D shape on the earth's surface corresponding to the shadow.

I've set up something very similar to this in Blender, although its floating point precision was too low, so I had to fudge things a bit.

Re: The most accurate map for August 21’s total solar eclipse

#13

Post by learc83 »

wyldfire wrote: post #2

I heard from a co-worker who plans to travel to Oregon that some of the hotel rooms in the path of the umbra are sometimes > 2-3k USD for the night(s) prior to the eclipse.

I don't see the point of booking something without knowing the weather unless you don't care about throwing it away and going somewhere else. My initial plan was to book several hotels in different areas, but it seems like every hotel inside the path of totality requires a 2 week notice to cancel (and this was months ago).

Since I'm about 1.5 hours from the path of totality in Georgia, my current plan is to drive out at like 3AM (before the roads have a chance to get packed) and just stay in the area.

If it looks like the weather isn't going to cooperate, I'm going to leave a day earlier. Get a hotel outside of the path of totality, and do the same thing I was planning to do at home (leave at 3AM to drive into it).

Re: The most accurate map for August 21’s total solar eclipse

#14

Post by BarkMore »

pklausler wrote: post #10
wyldfire wrote: post #2

I heard from a co-worker who plans to travel to Oregon that some of the hotel rooms in the path of the umbra are sometimes > 2-3k USD for the night(s) prior to the eclipse.

OPB says that Oregon expects a million visitors for the eclipse. If you don't already have solid bookings, don't even try. I have to drive about 15 miles south from my house to get deep into the totality, and I know all the back roads, and I still expect epic gridlock.

A high school graduation at the Expo center in Redmond is enough to cause 97 to backup. The eclipse backup will indeed be epic.

Re: The most accurate map for August 21’s total solar eclipse

#15

Post by jasode »

JPKab wrote: post #8
wyldfire wrote: post #2

I heard from a co-worker who plans to travel to Oregon that some of the hotel rooms in the path of the umbra are sometimes > 2-3k USD for the night(s) prior to the eclipse.

I think Oregon is a bad spot to view it. The weather (yes, even in summer) is too unpredictable and it's too close to populated coastal areas. Wyoming is the way to go, or western Nebraska. Don't expect to get hotels, but camping on a rancher's land is easy, and the arid climate in the summer minimizes chances of cloud cover.

>, or western Nebraska.

I'll be in eastern Nebraska (Omaha) and will drive south on I-80 towards the eclipse path and hopefully pull off to the side and park somewhere.

What's hard to plan for is whether too many other Nebraskans will have the exact same idea which means I have to camp out a ridiculous 12 hours before the event to secure a spot -- or give up entirely.

Re: The most accurate map for August 21’s total solar eclipse

#16

Post by learc83 »

JPKab wrote: post #8
wyldfire wrote: post #2

I heard from a co-worker who plans to travel to Oregon that some of the hotel rooms in the path of the umbra are sometimes > 2-3k USD for the night(s) prior to the eclipse.

I think Oregon is a bad spot to view it. The weather (yes, even in summer) is too unpredictable and it's too close to populated coastal areas. Wyoming is the way to go, or western Nebraska. Don't expect to get hotels, but camping on a rancher's land is easy, and the arid climate in the summer minimizes chances of cloud cover.

Why not just get a hotel outside of the path of totality, get up super early and drive to it?

Re: The most accurate map for August 21’s total solar eclipse

#17

Post by pavel_lishin »

learc83 wrote: post #13
wyldfire wrote: post #2

I heard from a co-worker who plans to travel to Oregon that some of the hotel rooms in the path of the umbra are sometimes > 2-3k USD for the night(s) prior to the eclipse.

I don't see the point of booking something without knowing the weather unless you don't care about throwing it away and going somewhere else. My initial plan was to book several hotels in different areas, but it seems like every hotel inside the path of totality requires a 2 week notice to cancel (and this was months ago). Since I'm about 1.5 hours from the path of totality in Georgia, my current plan is to drive out…

I'm in New York. I'm more than 1.5 hours away from the totality, so I'm going to have to head south and hope - although, I'm in the somewhat enviable position of just being able to sleep in a car... as long as someone cracks the window and leaves me a bowl of water.

On the other hand, the totality will pass in the very early afternoon, so I can probably just head back once it's over.

Re: The most accurate map for August 21’s total solar eclipse

#18

Post by Retric »

jasode wrote: post #15
JPKab wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Oregon is a bad spot to view it. The weather (yes, even in summer) is too unpredictable and it's too close to populated coastal areas. Wyoming is the way to go, or western Nebraska. Don't expect to get hotels, but camping on a rancher's land is easy, and the arid climate in the summer minimizes chances of cloud cover.

>, or western Nebraska. I'll be in eastern Nebraska (Omaha) and will drive south on I-80 towards the eclipse path and hopefully pull off to the side and park somewhere. What's hard to plan for is whether too many other Nebraskans will have the exact same idea which means I have to camp out a ridiculous 12 hours before the event to secure a spot -- or give up entirely.

The ideal location is 70 miles wide and 2100 miles long. I don't think viewing space is going to be much of an issue.

PS: Sure, the closer to the center the longer the total eclipse lasts. But, you still end up seeing the same thing.

Re: The most accurate map for August 21’s total solar eclipse

#19

Post by jasode »

learc83 wrote: post #16
JPKab wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Oregon is a bad spot to view it. The weather (yes, even in summer) is too unpredictable and it's too close to populated coastal areas. Wyoming is the way to go, or western Nebraska. Don't expect to get hotels, but camping on a rancher's land is easy, and the arid climate in the summer minimizes chances of cloud cover.

Why not just get a hotel outside of the path of totality, get up super early and drive to it?

That's what I'm doing but the wildcard is we don't know what a meaningful amount of "super early" would mean since we don't have recent eclipses in the USA to use as past guides about crowd behavior. It's an unprecedented mega event since the last total eclipse to cross the USA-48 was 1918 when the horse & buggy was still prevalent.

I plan to find a spot 6 hours early but my worst fear is that everybody else camped out 12+ hours before I did. Or there is unforseen traffic gridlock towards the path of totality.

Re: The most accurate map for August 21’s total solar eclipse

#20

Post by jzawodn »

wyldfire wrote: post #2

I heard from a co-worker who plans to travel to Oregon that some of the hotel rooms in the path of the umbra are sometimes > 2-3k USD for the night(s) prior to the eclipse.

Yeah, it's crazy.

I waited too long to plan and we're flying (ourselves) up to Idaho Falls and paying like $700/night. Selection was really bad and virtually every other town I tried had zero availability at any price!

Post reply on HN