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Linda's Top 10 List

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Linda Zellmer


Top 10 Resources on Solar Eclipses:

After compiling a website and adding new resources as I have found them, I decided to pick my top 10 resources about solar eclipses:

10. Espenak, Fred, 2008. World Atlas of Solar Eclipse Paths https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEatlas/SEatlas.html - this NASA website, developed by retired NASA scientist Fred Espenak, contains links to maps showing the tracks of historical (back to 2000 BCE) and future eclipses throughout the World (to the year 3000). It also contains links to a catalog of eclipses by century and a link to North American Eclipse Paths.

9. Mobberley, Martin, 2008. Total Solar Eclipses and How to Observe Them. https://ezproxy.wiu.edu/login?url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-69828-1 New York: Springer. This e-book contains sections on the science of eclipses, observing an eclipse (including safety information) and eclipse photography.

8. Astronomy Magazine’s Eclipse Glossary http://cs.astronomy.com/asy/b/astronomy/archive/2014/08/14/a-solar-eclipse-glossary.aspx - this glossary gives definitions as well as illustrations of many terms related to solar eclipses.

7. NASA Eclipse History https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov/eclipse-history - provides information on historical accounts of solar eclipses, including one recorded on a Babylonian clay tablet. The Goddard Space Flight Center also has a Solar Eclipse History https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEhistory/SEhistory.html web page gives quotes from and citations to the historical eclipse descriptions.

6. US Post Office Eclipse Stamps https://store.usps.com/store/browse/productDetailSingleSku.jsp?productId=S_475304 – The U.S. Post Office developed a heat-sensitive set of Forever stamps to celebrate the eclipse, which will occur on August 21, 2017. The stamps show the solar corona with the sun obscured by the moon when cool and the moon when warm.

5. NASA Eclipse Education https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov/k-12-formal-education has a very well organized set of educational resources that teachers can use to teach students about the sun. They include both educational materials and activities, such as making an edible model of the Sun and an eclipse viewer.

4. Interactive Eclipse Weather Map https://ncics.org/portfolio/monitor/eclipse-2017/ - The North Carolina Institute for Climate Studies, in cooperation with NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, has developed an interactive map that allows users to click on a location to see how often skies at that place are Clear, Few, Scattered, Broken and Overcast.

3. Geogebra Eclipse Magnitude and Obscuration https://www.geogebra.org/m/SnZ7QGTJ - A website that allows users to change the radius and center of the moon to demonstrate the relationship between eclipse magnitude (a value between 0 and 1) and percentage obscuration for solar eclipses. For the upcoming eclipse, the moon radius should be set to 1.02. Move the dot on the Moon Centre to the left to show an estimated view of an eclipse with a given magnitude and obscuration. In Macomb, Illinois the magnitude will be 0.956 and the obscuration will be 95.2%.

2. 2017 Total Solar Eclipse in the U.S. https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4314 is one of many videos that has been put out by NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio. Page down to see the third video on this page, which has images showing what the sun will look like in a given location.

1. Eclipse Safety Infographic from the American Optometric Association https://www.aoa.org/Documents/AOA_Solar_Eclipse_Across_America_infographic_vert_Final.pdf - The American Optometric Association has put together a very concise infographic on eclipse safety, information that everyone should know about.