Today is a special day. You have the opportunity to watch something rare. A total solar eclipse. That is where the Moon goes in front of the Sun and completely obscures it for a short time. This eclipse, to see it in person would require you to be in SouthEast Asia or in this case on the coral island of Woleai, in the Pacific Ocean 500 miles north of New Guinea.
The live webcast will start at 7:00pm CST, Racine time. The live Telescope Feed is March 8, 6:00–9:15 p.m. CST (starting times per originators – – view comments below for updates)
If you get a video error when you see this news item it is only because they have not started the program yet. Just be patient and wait for the start times to occur then refresh your browser.
Suggestion, call all your friends and family and tell them about this. It really is neat to watch.
Rees Roberts, your local Astronomy guy.
(crossing fingers all this works)
p.s. if you are using an iPhone you will need a browser which has flash capability. I suggest using your home computer so you can see it in full screen size.
UPDATE #1
The feed apparently was not available from the island. Therefore, I am providing a link to NASA TV via the Internet. This link has two live feeds available. You will be under control over both of them. The top one is a telescope view. The Solar Eclipse has already started. The second is a program with narration and will cover the period of time of totality. (Beware times are listed as Eastern Time. Therefore subtract one hour for Central Time.)
Here is the link to that live page:
Hint: If you are hearing two streams of audio it is because one is coming from this page and the other is coming from the NASA page. Our top of the page video is the same as the top of the page of NASA’s. So, just close one of them and you will get rid of the double audio problem.
Wouldn’t you know it, the original program we were going to share with you is up and running. Here is the link to that. Original Feed
You wouldn’t believe it but both feeds, ours and NASA’s are exactly the same program. So, NASA was going to use the same feed we going to feed.
The period of total eclipse, called totality, will occur from 7:38 to 7:42 p.m. CST.
The following short video what was seen a few minutes prior to totality. Notice the flare on top of the Sun, which is called a Coronal Mass Injection. That small flare is estimated at being between 5 and 10 times the size of the Earth.
