Eclipse Links

In my opinion, it's important to know which sources of information are best to turn to when finding out about eclipses in general, and for the 2017 eclipse in particular. There's a lot of information out there- but I wanted to share with you the websites that I felt best shared information about this eclipse. The following is a list of excellent websites about eclipses, or the 2017 one. These have been put together by some of the top eclipse scientists and chasers that exist in the world today. (Some of these websites have Facebook and Twitter pages associated with them- look for the Facebook and Twitter logos and click on them.)

Links specific to the 2017 eclipse:

http://www.eclipse2017.org/eclipse2017_main.htm : Created by Dan McGlaun. Dan is not an eclipse scientist: he's just passionate about eclipses. He has traveled all over the world to see 12 total eclipses of the sun (as of May 2016).

http://www.greatamericaneclipse.com : Created by Michael Zeiler. He's a geographer that has traveled the world to see 8 total solar eclipses.

http://americaneclipseusa.com/ : Jay Ryan wrote the educational astronomy comic strip "SkyWise", which appeared in Sky and Telescope magazine from 1997-2001.

http://nationaleclipse.com/ : Dave Clark doesn't "have any impressive astronomy creds or anything like that. (He's) just an average citizen who wants to help spread the word about this amazing event."

http://www.stjosepheclipse.com/podcasts.html : Michael Bakich is the senior editor of Astronomy magazine. This is his podcast about the 2017 total solar eclipse. If you click on "home" in the upper left hand corner, you'll be taken to the website highlighting the viewing party that he's hosting in St. Joseph, Missouri on eclipse day.

http://goseetheeclipse.com/ : This is astronomy and science educator Chap Percival's page about the 2017 eclipse.

 Maps of the 2017 eclipse: 

http://xjubier.free.fr/en/site_pages/solar_eclipses/TSE_2017_GoogleMapFull.html : created by Xavier Jubier. The area in between the red lines is where the eclipse is total. Click anywhere on the map for local circumstances. You can switch the view from "satellite" to "map" in the upper right hand corner.

http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEgoogle/SEgoogle2001/SE2017Aug21Tgoogle.html : NASA's map of the eclipse. The area between the blue lines is where the eclipse is total. You can click on this map for local circumstances, as well.
(note that the times listed on the above 2 maps is in Universal Time; I'll explain how to convert to local time in a later post.)

http://www.greatamericaneclipse.com/blog/2014/11/28/10-foot-map-of-the-great-american-eclipse : an excellent map of the eclipse created by Michael Zeiler. You can click on the map to bring it up full size. (You can also find individual maps for each state on his www.greatamericaneclipse.com site mentioned above; see "maps" at the top".)

Links about eclipses in general (science):

http://www.mreclipse.com/MrEclipse.html : Created by Fred Espenak. He is a retired astrophysicist. When he was working for the Goddard Space Flight Center, he helped create detailed maps of eclipse paths with his predictions. He now fuels his enthusiasm for the subject by continuing to chase total eclipses. He has traveled to see 27 of them.

Links about eclipses (enthusiastic amateur sites):

http://www.beingintheshadow.com/ : Created by Kate Russo. She saw her first total eclipse of the sun in 1999- and became addicted. Her passion is especially notable in the section titled "The Experience" at the top of the page. It is well worth reading the links on that page. She has seen 9 total eclipses.

https://www.eclipse-chasers.com/Map.html : Created by Bill Kramer. Lots of good links and information here. He has seen 16 total eclipses. One of the links within the site shows how many total eclipses various eclipse chasers have seen:  https://www.eclipse-chasers.com/php/tseChaserLogSums.php Note that there are many people who have chased multiple eclipses that have not contributed their name to this list. Seeing a total eclipse of the sun can be very addicting!

http://eclipseguy.com/ : Created by David Makepeace. He is a filmmaker, and obviously very passionate about eclipses. He has seen 13 total eclipses.

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/SEML/info : This is a discussion group about eclipses. Many of the top eclipse chasers are members. I've learned so much from being a member here. You have to join to post, but you can browse through the archives and use the search engine to look at some of the posts.