Witnessing the Total Solar Eclipse of March 7, 1970

by Jonathan1 Comment
With the levels of hype and anticipation rapidly growing for next month's Eclipse Across America (or whatever people are calling it now), I have been reflecting on when I witnessed a total solar eclipse back in 1970 as a 13-year-old. I was an 8th grade student at Walt Whitman Intermediate School in the Mt. Vernon area south of Alexandria, Virginia. I was deeply interested in all things space and astronomical. I had received a toy-store 3" reflector telescope for my birthday in 1968, and I quickly outgrew its capabilities. My parents gave me a 4-1/2" Tasco reflector telescope for Christmas in 1969. As a subscriber to Sky and Telescope magazine, I knew full well that the path of a total solar eclipse would be skirting the East Coast of the United States on March 7, 1970. Our home was about 200 miles away from the path of totality. We'd see a very nice partial eclipse with only a thin sliver of the sun...
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Perspectives on Saturn and Jupiter

by JonathanNo Comments
Last night, I captured the first photo I've ever taken of Saturn. I'm the first to admit that this isn't a spectacular or even good photo by any stretch of the imagination. I can find lots to criticize about it. However, I was surprised that a modest camera with a 300mm zoom lens was able to show the rings and planet so distinctly. This is probably as good as or better than the view Galileo had of Saturn when he discovered its rings with his primitive telescope in July 1610. He couldn't even see them as rings with his telescope. He thought they were smaller planets on either side of the the main body of Saturn. And I should count myself fortunate that my photo turned out as well as it did in the first place. The ten images I took afterward were all blurred by atmospheric turbulence, since Saturn was pretty low in the southeast sky when I shot the photos. Saturn is nearing opposition, which means that the Earth is...
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