21 eclipse, Venus will be positioned 34 degrees to the west (in celestial coordinates) of the eclipsed sun. (Image credit: SkySafari App)įor the Aug. The bright stars Sirius, Procyon, Castor and Pollux will be arrayed to the right. Closer in, Mercury and Mars will bracket the sun. The steeply tilted morning ecliptic (yellow line) will place Venus high to the eclipsed sun's upper right. In Salem, Oregon, maximum totality will occur at 10:18 a.m. Let's go over what to expect for this eclipse. The arrangement of the stars and planets is different for every eclipse, and sky-charting apps offer a perfect tool for previewing it. Although normally dimmer than Venus and Jupiter, they can also sometimes be seen with the naked eye during a total solar eclipse - and so can the brightest stars. Mercury and Mars vary in brightness depending on their distance from Earth. (See "How to See Jupiter by Day and Its Moons by Night Using Mobile Astronomy Apps.") During a total solar eclipse, the sky dims to the equivalent of dark twilight, so it's no surprise that those two planets can pop into view in a sky darkened by the eclipsed sun. But it can be a challenge to find them unless the moon happens to be nearby, offering a starting position for a binocular search. The brightest planets, Venus and Jupiter, can be seen in broad daylight with binoculars or unaided eyes - if you know where to look. The inner planets Mercury and Venus never venture more than about 25 degrees and 50 degrees away from the sun, respectively, so they spend a lot of time hidden in the daylight sky. They disappear into the sun's glare when they are near solar conjunction. The planets with orbits larger than Earth's can appear in a fully dark sky (when opposite the sun) or shine in the predawn eastern sky or the evening western sky. The sun and the planets that are visible to the naked eye always appear on or near the ecliptic, the imaginary line that traces the plane of the solar system around the sky. Seasoned eclipse chasers might enjoy looking for other eclipse-related phenomena. This total solar eclipse has a relatively short period of totality, so first-timers should really soak in the spectacle of the eclipsed sun. Looking at anything other than the eclipsed sun during totality on Aug. And by previewing where to find them, you'll still have plenty of time to enjoy the spectacle of the sun's outer atmosphere, called the corona, and orange-pink solar prominences visible around the moon's disk. For skywatchers who'd like to look for some "bonus objects" during the brief two and a half minutes of totality, when the sun is completely covered by the moon, mobile astronomy apps can offer a guide for where to look. In the past, astronomers have used solar eclipses to test Albert Einstein's theory of relativity, look for comets near perihelion (the points in their orbits where they're closest to the sun) and search for theorized inner planets.
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