In Case You Missed The Eclipse

total lunar eclipse

Last night’s Slooh.com webcast of the total lunar eclipse was a success. Over 426,000 viewed during our webcast with 70,000 watching at one point. I’ve been told we’re now over 700,000 views as people catch up on what they missed while asleep. We had Twitter messages from around-the-world, which was pretty cool.

The whole eclipse was visible from my office window! While on-the-web I let my trusty Nabi Square HD camera shoot it in time lapse. Here’s a look at what you missed, sped up for 21st Century attention spans!

Slooh

Screenshot 2014-04-29 00.23.47

I spent the last few hours on-the-air, sort of. It was an Internet broadcast from slooh.com. There was an eclipse Tuesday afternoon in Australia. We started coverage at 11 PM PDT.

First things first. Even we admit, this was right on the line of stuff too small to care about. It was an annular eclipse where the Moon doesn’t fully cover the Sun. The only place to see the annular phase was a small chunk of Antarctica! No one went.

We had a camera in Australia with a nice view of the partial eclipse… until the clouds came.

I was joined by Bob Berman, an astronomer who also works for slooh.com and Dr. Lucie Green, a solar scientist with a wonderful British accent came on from Japan. By definition, everyone with a British accent is smart. They were both great as we tried to have good content to fill the time.

Remember, our main video was the Moon slowly moving over the Sun, never fully covering it.

We’re still a little shaky. The equipment is rudimentary, but we’re upgrading. I think the content portion went well. There’s low hanging fruit to get better.

This is a narrowcast. Most people will never care. Those who do who care passionately. These are the folks we need to reach.

That’s my job.

I’m Studying For The Eclipse

The small “D” shaped area where the maximum annular eclipse will be seen is so remote, even for Antarctica, it’s predicted no one will watch it live! No one!

I’m studying up. I’ll be hosting a webcast covering the eclipse late Monday evening on slooh.com.

eclipse-path

Annular_solar_eclipse_April_29_2014An eclipse takes place late Monday night, my time. That’s early Tuesday morning back on the East Coast.

Academic. Neither place will see it.

The eclipse takes place Tuesday afternoon in Australia. They get a little touch of this annular eclipse.

Annular eclipses occur when the Moon is relatively close to the Earth. That makes it smaller in the sky than the Sun, allowing a small ring of the Sun to remain visible.

As eclipses go, this one just barely makes it.

Much of Antarctica and Australia will see part of the Sun blocked. SolarEclipse2014Apr29AOnly in a tiny region of Antarctica will see the full annular eclipse. There it happens with the Sun on the horizon for just 49 seconds!

The small “D” shaped area where the maximum annular eclipse will be seen is so remote, even for Antarctica, it’s predicted no one will watch it live! No one!

I’m studying up. I’ll be hosting a webcast covering the eclipse late Monday evening on slooh.com. We should have access to live video from Australia where, in some spots, over half the Sun will be blotted out temporarily.

It’s a good chance to rustle up a little scientific curiosity.