Update no.817

Update from the Heartland

No.817

21.8.17 – 27.8.17

Blog version:  http://heartlandupdate.blogspot.com/

            To all,

            More than a few citizens have criticized the Press and to a far lesser extent me for focusing too much attention on the words of the person who shall not be named.  Well, this week’s edition of the Update will be a short respite.

            Our great American eclipse adventure began Sunday (20.August) afternoon, as we gathered up our stuff and headed north.  The prognostic weather forecast at the time of departure for our intended observation point was somewhat dicey but on the positive side.  The weather in Wichita on Saturday was perfect – not a single cloud, no haze, no obscurations of any kind – but, close does not count.  We planned to overnight in Salina, Kansas, to be one plus hour closer to our observation destination – Fairmont, Nebraska, smack dab on the centerline of the path of totality.

            If you will permit me, I offer just a few little related historical tidbits to accentuate this particular astronomical event.  The last solar eclipse seen in the contiguous United States occurred on 26.February.1979; I missed that one, although I am not sure why. The last time a total eclipse was visible from coast to coast across the contiguous United States was on 8.June.1918, when U.S. troops were still engaged in combat in France during the War to End All Wars.  Another noteworthy eclipse occurred on 29.May.1919, when British astronomer Sir Arthur Eddington measured the positions of certain stars before and during the eclipse to confirm the phenomenon of gravitational lensing that in turn empirically confirmed Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity.  Eddington’s primary observation site was on Príncipe Island off the West Coast of Africa, just north of the equator.  He also arranged for a back-up site and observation team at Sobral, Brazil, in case the weather was not adequate at the primary site.  Both observation sites were fortunate, and both teams duplicated the necessary measurements.

            The entire route was thankfully four-lane divided highway – I-135 transitioned to US-81, north of Salina.  While the vehicular volume was clearly greater going north when compared to the southbound traffic, the traffic was surprisingly well-mannered and smooth flowing with only one exception – Concordia, Kansas with a population of just over 5,000 people.  Concordia can lay claim to the only four stoplights on the entire 226-mile route.  Further, the two northbound lanes necked down to a single lane for a railway overpass bridge at the north end of town.            It took 30 minutes to get through Concordia alone, which ate up half of my planned site search margin before the eclipse began.  Fairmont, Nebraska, population 564 with no stoplights, lay just east of the intersection of US-81 & US-6.  We tried east on US-6 first, and then west.  I was looking for an off-the-road site with a good landscape view to take a series of comparative images in an attempt to capture the darkening of the sun.  We found a perfect site at 10:37, a mile or so west of the junction – an unmarked, wide, gravel road – in plenty of time.  I set up our chairs, camera tripod and made camera ready.  We had time to sit down, and enjoy a sandwich and a cold drink.  Just as we were finishing lunch, a man drove up in a pick up truck and informed us we were on private property and had to move.  Well bummer!

            Now, I felt the time pressure.  We had to pack everything up including the dog.  I chose to go south on a dirt country road.  Other people had already staked out the good spots.  I stopped several times to check on the progress of the eclipse, since we were now past first contact time.

Cap Checking Progress

[file: Cap checking 170821.jpg]

We finally settled on a spot along the shoulder of a dirt road in the middle of two cornfields.  Of particular note in the above image are: the cornfield behind us; the power line of which there was actually two, one on each side of the road; and most notably the clouds that at times completely obscured the sun.  It was not looking good for our little adventure.

Nebraska Cornfield

[file: cornfield 170821.jpg]

The above image was the cornfield in front of us – our local horizon . . . so much for my landscape imaging idea.

Sadie Sue

[file: Sadie 170821.jpg]

Sadie was nice and comfy, though.  Like Jeanne said, the image immediately above is Sadie watching out for the Children of the Corn . . . for those in the know about such things.  I thought I saw a face.  Oh yikes!

Cap & Jeanne Before the Eclipse

[file: Jeanne & Cap 170821.jpg]

Of course, what would the observation of a significant astronomical event be without a selfie?  Fortunately, the light show we had come all the way to see was directly above us.  Second contact occurred at 13:04 [S] CDT, with peak totality a minute later.

            Despite my preparations, I struggled with aperture settings and shutter speeds to obtain a good image of the eclipse.  We had to deal with persistent Cirrostratus and Cirrocumulus clouds the entire period.  At peak totality, the clouds seemed to miraculously dissipate toward the end of second contact.  The darkness was rather strange in that the far horizon was partially lighted.  The air temperature dropped a good 10-15 degrees in the darkness.  The following two images were the best I was able to capture.

Eclipse Second Contact 2017

[file: My eclipse image 170821.jpg]

The above image was taken just after second contact.  The Cirrostratus clouds did not help matters, and my overexposure bloomed the corona.

Eclipse Third Contact 2017

[file: eclipse third contact 170821.jpg]

While I did not get a good image or two to share with everyone, I can only assure you with words the eclipse at our location was total, dramatic, even spiritual, and of course it was truly awesome.  The dark disk of the moon had a perfect halo of the sun’s corona, easily visible with the unaided eye.

            At third contact, sunlight returned to the darkness.  We chose not to follow the eclipse to fourth contact, since we had a three plus hour drive ahead of us.  We packed up, loaded the dog and headed south at 13:15.  We expected problems in Concordia, as we had experienced in the morning. This time, they had each stoplight flashing yellow and police stationed at each of those intersections, moving the exodus along.  Traffic was far more congested going south and unfortunately less orderly.  Sadly, it only takes a few slow pokes to clog up the works.  We had more than a few on the trip home.  We made it back home by 16:45 . . . tired and ready for a shower.

            I include two images below: one of what I wanted to capture, and the other a rather nice, well composed image of the partial eclipse as seen in Arizona.

Total Solar Eclipse

Image credit to Derek Demeter

[file: Demeter image 170821.jpg]

Partial Eclipse

Image credit to Sara Morse

[file: Sara Morse eclipse 170821 IMG_8987.jpg]

            The bottom line for our adventure: hours and hours of preparation for two minutes of ecstasy.  What does that sound like?  At the end of the day, it was worth the effort.  We look forward to the next rendition.

            Lucky for us, the next total eclipse to be seen in the United States will occur on Monday, 8.April.2024.  It is on my calendar to witness another one.  Hopefully by then, I can do better with my camera skills.

            Jeanne thought this was Too Much Information (TMI).  Perhaps it is, since there is probably information in my little travelogue that most folks could care less about; however, I found it a welcome break from everything from he-who-shall-not-be-named (at least for this week) like last week [816].

            The follow-up news items:

-- He-who-shall-not-be-named (this week) signed another executive order – remember that particular class of documents Republicans were so bloody critical of President Obama for using – formalizing his directive to discriminate against transgender citizen volunteers in the military services [813].  I have not been able to read the two-and-a-half-page document, as yet; however, the Press reporting so far does not mention performance standards or thresholds.  That said, I do agree that the military should not be funding elective medical procedures for any service member for any reason.  Full stop!  However, such a funding restriction is not a reason to discriminate against transgender or gender-ambiguous citizens.  Performance to common standards is the only acceptable criteria for service.

            The U.S. Seventh Fleet experienced another fatal at sea collision in two months, this time involving the USS John S. McCain (DDG-56) – named for Senator McCain’s father and grandfather.  The collision with Liberian-registered MV Alnic occurred at 05:24 [G] on Monday, 21^st of August, east of Singapore.  The latest at sea collision comes just two months after the collision of the USS Fitzgerald (DDG-62) [807].  This was apparently the fourth major at sea accident in the Seventh Fleet and the second fatal accident under the command of Seventh Fleet Commander-in-Chief Vice Admiral Joseph P. Aucoin, USN.  He was relieved of command for a loss of command confidence and he will most likely be retired.  Something is dreadfully wrong for two world-class destroyers to suffer accidents of this nature at sea.  Aucoin is not the only officer who will end their military service with these accidents.

            When it rains, it pours.  In another controversial action, he-who-shall-not-be-named (this week) pardoned former Maricopa County (Arizona) sheriff and convicted felon Joseph Michael ‘Joe’ Arpaio, who was convicted last month of disobeying a federal court order to halt immigration raids.  While the president clearly has the constitutional authority to do what he did, the ethics and optics of the action are extraordinarily bad.  Yet, as we all know, honey badger don’t give a ****! 

            Our hearts and prayers go out to the citizens of the Gulf Coast and Southeast Texas, as Hurricane Harvey slammed ashore as a category 4 storm, and then stalled dumping epic volumes of rain; in some locations, dropping a year’s worth of rain in a 24-hour period.  Worse, the forecast calls for the now tropical depression to just sit there pumping more rain into the already saturated region.

            Comments and contributions from Update no.816:

Comment to the Blog:

“This may startle some, but I don’t believe Trump has opinions in the sense of a position resulting from evidence and logic, not even the ‘evidence and logic’ of believing a trusted authority figure.  His thoughts and ideas come from being trapped in his mind.  His neck-snapping reversals on Charlottesville make me wonder if Bannon was doing the thinking.  If so, we’re in for even more chaos. General Kelly needs to use a psychologist to understand his task of trying to make the White House make sense.

"Trump ‘shut down’ a couple of boards after everybody on them quit.  More importantly, he’s disbanding his science advisory board without officially publishing their report on climate change.  The New York Times published the report. It’s scary and it is based on the soundest science available.

“I disagree with your cherry picking General Lee as a ‘good’ Confederate.  Nor does military versus civilian matter.  The point of the monuments and the protests over them is that they all stand as tributes to people who attacked the United States.

“What you see as the ‘magnificent beauty’ of the English language, I see as its worst trait.  The fact that a given word of phrase can have multiple meanings causes much misunderstanding and even more abuse of our language, as in your example of ‘many sides.’  There were no more than two ‘sides’ in Charlottesville (not counting police), and one of the two sides was open Nazis, racists, and other violent haters.  They came heavily armed, gave a military appearance, and made every effort to incite riots.  One of them killed an unarmed person.  There’s no misunderstanding here, but there is abuse of words.

“I will leave it to you to deal with your other commenter, but I want to bring up his (all-caps) phrase WHITE GUILT.  He seems to treat that as a weapon someone is using against him.  My view of history and current events tells me a level of white guilt is utterly appropriate.  My own history tells me the same.  I have benefited from white privilege.  A man I know would have died in a confrontation with the police had he been non-white.  It’s not that my friend or I should have had more consequences.  The issue is that others should not have them simply for not being white.”

My response to the Blog:

            Re: Trump.  Interesting observations and opinion.  You may well be correct.

            Re: POTUS advisory boards.  Well, I don’t think they all quit, but enough to get his attention and that was enough.  His climate change stance is all political and has nothing to do with scientific study.

            Re: cherry-picking Confederate generals.  Ah, yes, the beauty of freedom.  We shall respectfully disagree.  Groups like Aryan Nation, KKK, and such utilize the Stars & Bars as part of their symbology.  I have never seen even one of those groups use even a likeness of Lee, Jackson, Longstreet . . . none of the generals . . . well, excluding Forrest, who was the founder of the KKK in 1866.

            Re: English language.  I did say its diversity was also a curse.  Well, the author in me is reluctant to agree, but the citizen I am must agree.  What he did was an abuse of words.

            Re: WHITE GUILT.  I shall allow your words to stand by themselves.

Another contribution:

“As usual, a typically unedited off-the-cuff remark (revealing a lack of discipline and weak advisors, but based upon a timely accurate but politically incorrect evaluation of the crowds who came to the Charlottesville protest against and for statue destruction) by Trump has been twisted into two weeks of ‘news’ (a parade of commenters dominating 75% of air time) flavored by counter-tweets and more riders on the storm.  Just one example says it all (unless the quickly repeated allegation of ‘equivalence’ and like terms says it better):

“To keep it going, some female anchor recently goaded the nation's best recognized evangelist (based upon his father's well earned reputation) into submission with a question based upon her own misquotation of the President, claiming Trump said there were good well intentioned people on both sides including some ‘marching with the Nazi KKK.’  The good interviewee could only shake his head, when a more combative person would have exposed her left stream media recitation as false, since our POTUS never said or intended to imply that those who peacefully came to protest the destruction of monuments ever ‘marched with the KKK, etc.,’ even if it turns out some may have gotten caught up in the procession before it got ugly.  Of course, it would not have done a bit of good, any more than a clearer comment about the counter-protesters armed to the teeth and itching for the fight they got with the skinheads.”

“Trump sadly missed the first opportunity to say the right thing at the right time and then, characteristically, made it worse by defending himself against the well-orchestrated tsunami of opportunistic criticism.  Same old pattern; just a more inflammatory subject.

“As for CNN, I personally timed its coverage of the ‘news’ one evening comparing it with FoxNews and confirmed that while Fox covered various world events, CNN spend the same entire almost hour long segment interviewing Trump haters and keeping the original twist going.

“Yes, I guess it is news when CEOs bail out to get distance from Trump, but rest of the entire episode qualifies as fake-based news in my opinion.  It is designed to advance the Democratic Party's agenda to delegitimize our President, by any means available, especially any means by which identity politics may be used to further the divisions in our population.

“Too bad the eclipse was not spiritual enough to get the left stream media back into patriotic mode.”

My reply:

            Re: “Trump sadly missed the first opportunity . . . ”  Well said, actually; and, I agree.  He is his own worst enemy.

            Re: CNN.  Interesting observations.  I could easily say the same thing about FoxNews in reverse.  Again, it is our responsibility to evaluate information and arrive at our positions.  I do not agree with your implicit accusation of bias by CNN; but, that is the beauty of freedom.

            Re: “fake-based news in my opinion.”  You are entitled to your opinion.  We shall respectfully disagree on this as well.  The beauty of freedom . . . you can switch it off or turn the channel, if you don’t want to hear the message.  So, your opinion suggests you are comfortable with the Donald deciding what is proper news and what is not?

            The eclipse was quite spiritual for me.  My commentary in this week’s Update [817].

            My very best wishes to all.  Take care of yourselves and each other.

Cheers,

Cap                        :-)