It will be a rare sight to behold, and Mount Wilson Observatory is not going to miss it.
On April 8, there will be a solar eclipse and the folks at the observatory are inviting the public to come up to the site — 5715 feet above Pasadena — to watch and learn as the spectacle take place.
A caveat: Observatory representatives note that while the eclipse will be seen as total throughout most of North America, Los Angeles won’t be in the so-called “path of totality.”
But it’ll still be a sight.
“Residents here will still see a portion of the event; at its max, it will look like someone took a bite out of the sun with about two-thirds still visible,” according to observatory officials.
During the event — and weather permitting — Mount Wilson Observatory will stream the eclipse live to its Auditorium. It will be projected in hydrogen alpha, a filter which allows participants to see surface features on the sun.
The base of the150-foot solar tower telescope will also be open to see a live projection of the eclipse.
Things get going just after 10 a.m.
- 10:06 a.m. PDT – Eclipse begins
- 11:12 a.m. PDT – Eclipse is at its max (Moon covers 49% of sun’s area)
- 12:21 p.m. PDT – Eclipse ends
Tom Meneghini, director of telescope operations at Mount Wilson, is set to oversee the event with associate Richard Bell. They’ll offer commentary as the sun and the moon put on their show.
If you go, you won’t be alone in the nationwide gaze to watch the eclipse.
It promises to be a scientific bonanza, thanks to new spacecraft and telescopes — and cosmic chance.
The moon will be extra close to Earth, providing a long and intense period of darkness, and the sun should be more active with the potential for dramatic bursts of plasma. Then there’s totality’s densely populated corridor stretching from Mexico to the U.S. to Canada.
Hundreds if not thousands of the tens of millions of spectators will double as “citizen scientists,” helping NASA…
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