News - Blogs - Prepare your pinhole projector Solar eclipse Sunday

Prepare your pinhole projector: Solar eclipse Sunday
Published: 5/16/2012 12:40 PM
Last Modified: 5/16/2012 12:40 PM

A windmill is silhouetted in front of a partial solar eclipse on June 10, 2002 near Ellis, Kan., as many residents of western Kansas were able to see the event which continued through sunset on the Plains. (AP Photo/Hays Daily News, Steven Hausler)

Do you remember 1994? Don’t get mad, but I was 7 in May of that year. I remember teacher taking us outside, handing everyone special glasses to look at the sky at something they told me I wouldn’t see again until my mid- to late-20s.

Well, here we are!

The moon will cast its shadow on the Earth Sunday, and for the first time since 1994, Oklahoma will able to see at some of a partial eclipse. Well, the path of the eclipse will be closest since then.

Now don’t get too excited: We are outside the swath that will get the full annular eclipse. And, it will end at sunset, with an hour from when the eclipse will begin to sunset, when it will be about halfway over.

But the shadow will produce an annular eclipse that starts in eastern Asia, crosses to the northern Pacific to near the Aleutian Islands of Alaska before coming ashore near the California/Oregon border and sweep southeast through parts of Nevada, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico before ending at sunset near Lubbock, Texas.

Here is a handy gif of that happening, thanks to NASA:

“But Jerry, why do you keep saying ‘annular eclipse?’ What does that mean and why are you posing questions to yourself?”

An annular eclipse is when the moon is at a point far enough away from the sun that it appears smaller and does not completely cover the sun, creating a bright ring (or annulus, Latin for little ring) around the moon’s outline.

We will not see the annulus, but we should be able to see at least some of the moon in front of the sun.

I keep saying “see.” I don’t mean that literally, because you should never, ever, ever look at the sun, ever. Don’t do it. Even eclipsed, the sun can fry your little eyeballs and cause permanent damage.

So how do you see it? Don’t fret: there are ways to view the eclipse without looking at the sun.

One is by special eclipse glasses, but unless you want to pay for overnight shipping today or tomorrow, or happen to find them at a store in Tulsa, that option is out the window.

The cheaper, easier and more practical option is to create a pinhole projector. You can find those instructions here.

Will you miss this eclipse? Don’t worry; you won’t have to wait 18 years to see the next one. In fact, you just have to wait about five years. A total solar eclipse is predicted to occur on August 21, 2017. Its path is quite narrow, but will go nearly through Kansas City and across Missouri. Very close to us. In fact, the closest total eclipse since 1918 and the closest until 2024.

Ready to have your mind blown? Here is what an eclipse looks like from space, thanks to the ISS. This was over Turkey on March 29, 2006.

Woah, right? I know.

--Jerry Wofford

Reader Comments

Show: Newest First

Learn About Our Comment Policy

To post comments on tulsaworld.com, you must be an active Tulsa World print or digital subscriber and signed into your account.

To sign in to your account, go to tulsaworld.com/signin.
To activate your print subscription for unlimited digital access and to post comments, go to tulsaworld.com/activate.
To purchase a subscription, go to tulsaworld.com/subscribe.

Almanac

Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun
Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec

	Temperature		Precipitation
Date	High Temp	Low Temp	Total	Month to date	Historical average
1	44°	16°	0	0.00	0.05
2	59°	24°	0	0.00	0.11
3	57°	33°	0	0.00	0.16
4	68°	37°	Trace	0.00	0.21
5	69°	29°	0	0.00	0.26
6	66°	33°	0	0.00	0.32
7	59°	38°	0.05	0.05	0.38
8	51°	34°	0	0.05	0.44
9	44°	36°	0.01	0.06	0.51
10	62°	37°	0.07	0.13	0.57
11	54°	28°	0	0.13	0.64
12	44°	30°	0.25	0.38	0.70
13	55°	40°	0.01	0.39	0.76
14	°	°			0.83
15	°	°			0.89
16	°	°			0.95
17	°	°			1.02
18	°	°			1.09
19	°	°			1.16
20	°	°			1.23
21	°	°			1.31
22	°	°			1.38
23	°	°			1.46
24	°	°			1.53
25	°	°			1.61
26	°	°			1.69
27	°	°			1.77
28	°	°			1.85

TEMPERATURE

RAINFALL

SNOWFALL

Weather World

Follow Jerry Wofford on Twitter for updates during severe weather conditions.

Tulsa weather milestones of 2013 (as of Feb. 12)

Highest temperature: 70 on Jan. 11 (Record: 115 on Aug. 15, 1936)
Lowest temperature: 15 on Jan. 16 (Record: Minus-16 on Jan. 22, 1930)
Hottest month (average): 40.5 degrees in January (Record: 91.7 degrees on July 1980)
Coldest month (average): 40. 5 degrees in January (Record: 21.7 in January 1918)
Most snowfall (day): 0.1 of an inch on Feb. 12(Record: 13.2 inches on Feb. 1, 2011)
Most snowfall (month): 0.1 of an inch in February(Record: 22.5 inches in February 2011)
Most rainfall (day): 0.91 of an inch on Jan. 29 (Record: 9.27 inches on May 26-27, 1984)
Most rainfall (month): 1.54 of an inch in January (Record: 18.18 inches on September 1971)
Highest wind speed: 30 mph on Jan. 30
Previous day with any rain: Feb. 12
Previous day with 1 inch or more of rain: Oct. 17, 2012
Previous day with any snow: Feb. 12
Previous day with freezing temperatures: Feb. 12
Read regular updates on Oklahoma's unpredictable weather and learn more about meteorology from the Tulsa office of the National Weather Service.

>> Visit the main weather page
>> Send us your weather photos
>> Meet the forecasters

Contributors
Staff Writer Althea Peterson started writing for the Tulsa World in March 2007 after previous stops at the Norman Transcript in 2006 and the Oklahoma Gazette in 2005. She followed her older brother from rural Wisconsin (with a public school that never seemed to call snow days) to the University of Oklahoma, but did not follow his pursuit to study meteorology. However, she tries to find as many opportunities to report on the weather as possible.

Staff Writer Jerry Wofford came to the Tulsa World in 2010 from The Manhattan Mercury in Manhattan, Kan. Originally from western Arkansas and a graduate of the University of Oklahoma, Jerry has lived in Tornado Alley his entire life and is one of those people who goes outside when the sirens go off.

Subscribe to this blog

Temperature
High Temp:	(Example: 45)
Low Temp:	(Example: 45)
Temperature Date:	(Example: 1/1/2011)

Precipitation
Total:	(Example: '.01)
Month to date:	(Example: '.01)
Normal month to date:	(Example: '.01)

2/2013	1/2013	12/2012	11/2012	10/2012	9/2012
8/2012	7/2012	6/2012	5/2012	4/2012	3/2012
2/2012	1/2012	12/2011	11/2011	10/2011	9/2011
8/2011	7/2011	6/2011

Your bookmark will appear on your Profile page. Please give it a title, and short description so that visitors to your page will understand where the bookmark leads.
Bookmark Title :

Bookmark Text :