July through September, 2017

Total Eclipse

Eclipse Data for Bridger Canyon Lodge

Not being satisfied to see only 94.883% obscuration at our house, on August 20 we drove our little RV to Thermopolis, Wyoming, to stay overnight at an RV park (having made reservations many months prior). We have stayed at this RV park before; it is a bit run down, but has its own natural hot springs to relax in.

The RV park was due for a few seconds of totality, but we wanted more. We got up early on the 21st and drove further south. We stopped at a state park southwest of Shoshoni, 2 miles from the center-line of the eclipse. There we got 2 minutes and 23.2 seconds of totality.

Gary had experience viewing partial eclipses and set up his favorite viewing apparatus: a 12x spotting scope, tripod and sheet of white paper. Getting the spotting scope positioned to project an image onto the paper can be tricky and requires practice, plus one must make constant adjustments as the earth rotates. When other people saw what we were doing they tried to do the same, with very mixed results. We were able to see the same details as the University of Wyoming astronomy team parked nearby.

The image we got (see picture) was good enough see distinct sunspots on the sun's surface before they were obscured by the moon. Of course, once totality started, we dispensed with the apparatus and eclipse glasses to see the corona. The difference between a partial and total ecplise became apparent when the last flicker of sunlight disappeared and the corona suddenly appeared: there was a huge gasp of amazement from the 100s of people around us.

Data at Our Eclipse Viewing Location