April’s total solar eclipse will be the ‘Super Bowl of astronomical events’

it's the Super Bowl World Cup tour to France you name it all wrapped up one if people have seen a partial solar eclipse which most have particularly in 2017 that in no way prepares you for a total solar eclipse they are completely different events a partial of solar eclipse is when the moon partially covers the Sun's face um and the human eye doesn't notice that until it's 95% Eclipse so it really it doesn't do anything unless you have your solar eclipse glasses on and see it um annular Eclipse

which we actually did have in 1994 here in Indianapolis that's where the moon's a bit smaller than the Sun so it can't completely cover the Sun's face okay uh and in that case you know it looks like a sort of a ring in the sky or annels U those you wouldn't really know what's happening either a hybrid eclipse is a special one where you go from a annular to a total um so in the Moon is just just just perfectly the same size as what it appears as the sun and a total is when you have the sun comple

tely blocked out and by that we mean the sun will appear a million times dimmer because now you only see the Corona and not its surface we already have purchased over $20,000 worth of equipment for this Eclipse so we're going to have solar telescopes guide people through the eclipse tell them look for this things like what we call Shadow bands diamond ring effect uh you know talk about the temperature changes the wind change that can occur uh you know just various things to look for and it's bas

ically in that final 10 minutes as you approach totality and particularly in the final 2 or 3 minutes that's when things really change dramatically we'll hear birds roosting things like that which you can hear anywhere um but like I said prior to totality we're going to have all our telescopes trained on this so people can see Sunspot and solar activity and things like that get your eclipse glasses or find someone who has some okay don't use sunglasses or anything like that they will will not wo

rk you'll damage your eyes eclipse glasses um or like I said you can come to hul Observatory we'll have solar telescopes and things like that up um the other thing I recommend people do is get in the path of totality so if anyone in your listening audience here is outside of that where they live just go the extra few miles if it's that to get inside of it because as we always tell people a 99% partially eclipse on is still 0% totality and you can't describe totality to anyone everyone I've talke

d to said you just can't describe it during totality that's when you don't need your eclipse glasses cuz the sun is a million times dimmer uh so you want to take them off the minute this totality comes then the minute the Sun comes back you put them back on so there's going to be roughly that 3 to 4 minutes here in in Central Indiana that we have that basically Twilight sort of looking sky going on um just don't look at the sun look at look at for this clothe look for things like that look at th

e sky because you'll see the bright planets of Venus and Jupiter very easily if it's a clear day they'll be either side of of of the sun viewers in cooko the north half of cooko will be outside of the path of totality the South Side will be so just driving that extra 5 miles from north to south you might go from 0% totality still sun shining to totality for perhaps a minute or two so it really does make a difference to drive that extra 5 or 10 miles just to get in the path this is one of the mos

t amazing natural wonders anyone can see in their lifetime and your chance of seeing one in your lifetime is only once about every 390 years and I did the math from uh let's see I think over 5,000 year period centered around today's date or so there have only been 11 total solar eclipses pass over the circle since this is something in the sky this is free to everyone just look up to see this event and so even if you can't make it to our event or someone else's it's free to you look up in the sky

get those eclipse glasses and then at totality pull those off and enjoy that pearly orb uh surrounding that black hole where the sun used to be