Solar Eclipse Sky Watch

Join us at the Rosicrucian Planetarium in San Jose for our August 21 Solar Eclipse Sky Watch, beginning at 9:45 am.

The partial eclipse will begin in San Jose at 9:01 am, the maximum eclipse is at 10:15 am, and the partial eclipse will end at 11:38 am.

We will meet at the Rosicrucian Planetarium (1664 Park Avenue, San Jose, 95126) at 9:45 am and then walk to the nearby Rosicrucian Labyrinth for viewing of the partial eclipse until 10:45 am.

Free Solar Viewing Glasses to the first 100 participants.

For Eclipse-Specific Apps (recommended by the American Astronomical Society and National Science Foundation), please visit: https://eclipse.aas.org/resources/apps-software More about the Eclipse:

For about two minutes on Monday, August 21, the skies over Casper, WY, Nashville, TN, the southern suburbs of St. Louis, MO, and Columbia, SC, will turn almost as dark as night. They will be darkened by one of nature’s most spectacular events: a total solar eclipse. This may be the most-watched eclipse in history.

The eclipse takes place as the new Moon passes directly between Earth and the Sun. By an astronomical coincidence, the Moon and Sun appear almost exactly the same size in Earth’s sky, allowing the Moon to completely cover the Sun. The sky will turn dark, and the Sun’s hot but faint outer atmosphere, the corona, will shine like silver tendrils around the intervening lunar disk.

This eclipse is the first to cross the United States since 1979. It will begin over the Pacific Ocean, when the Moon’s dark shadow first touches Earth. The shadow will reach the Oregon coastline at 10:16 a.m. PDT, and race southeastward before exiting over South Carolina at 2:49 p.m. EDT. The shadow will cross 11 states.

Totality will reach its maximum length of about 2 minutes, 40 seconds, over southern Missouri. The path of the eclipse will reach a maximum width of about 70 miles, with the eclipse lasting longest along the centerline of that path. Nashville is the largest city within the eclipse path, although parts of Kansas City and St. Louis will lie inside the shadow as well.

According to the American Astronomical Society, 12.2 million people live along the path of totality, 50 million live within 100 miles of that path, and 88 million are within 200 miles — a few hours’ drive. While the rest of the United States will miss out on the total phase of the eclipse, the entire country, including San Jose, will experience a partial eclipse, where the Moon covers a part of the solar disk. From cities close to the eclipse path (such as Portland, Oregon, where the Moon will cover 99 percent of the Sun, or Atlanta, with 97 percent coverage), the sky will turn noticeably darker and the temperature will drop a bit. Skywatchers should use eye protection to watch the partial eclipse from any location.