Hey, it's me Destin, welcome back to Smarter Every Day.
We've all heard about solar eclipses, right?
and you're probably aware that there's a huge one coming very soon
so, you think about how to prepare and you're thinking, maybe I gotta get some special goggles
so that when I'm looking up at the sky and I see the moon come across I don't hurt my eyes
so I can see totality by looking directly at the sun or something like that, right?
It's actually far more complicated and far more beautiful than that.
There are very specific moments that happen during a solar eclipse
That if you're prepared for 'em, down to the second, you can see really neat things that you didn't know about before.
So, today on Smarter Every Day, there's this hyper-meticulous guy in my hometown.
when I say meticulous, just look at what he does for a living
Anyway, this guy has chased eclipses all over the world--eclipsees, I don't know,
Anyway, this guy is like, having a meeting right now, with all his buddies
They're going to plan, down to the second, where they're going to be.
So they can see these individual events, not just totality, but there's other stuff that happens.
Anyway, let's go bust up in here
And let's figure how to scientifically watch
an eclipse. Let's go.
Can I bust up your meeting and ask you a question ?
Yes, sir. This is Dr.Gordon Tulipan.
He's a well-respected plastic surgeon by day
known for great attention to detail.
So why are you guys here listening to this guy?
*Laughter* 'Cause he's the man?
I'm here because he's known as
an eclipse fanatic.
He's travelled the world to film eclipses
And he's even been invited to give talks at NASA.
At the meeting, I told Dr. Tulipan
I wanted to go to my son's baseball game so
he agreed to meet with me the following day
in his conference room.
By the way, my oldest son found his baseball swing this year
and I love to watch him play.
I came back the next day for a one-on-one
eclipse study session with Dr.Tulipan.
I got a good show for you.
DESTIN>> So I guess your ultimate goal is to
prepare people for this eclipse
GORDON>> and to inspire them not to miss it.
This eclipse is
going to be a once in a lifetime thing for
a lot of people. People are not going to travel
all over the world to go to eclipses
like I do. It's a wonderful thing to have
an eclipse in your country
you can drive to, and when I show you
the world map of the eclipses that
are going to happen in the next twenty years,
you'll understand how difficult it is
to get to a total solar eclipse with you son.
He started with the basics. He first explained
how magical it is that our Moon and Sun
are almost exactly the same size
in the sky even though they're very
different celestial bodies. The Moon orbits
the Earth in an ellipse.
This means as it gets closer to us, it looks bigger
and as it gets further away from us, it looks smaller.
The really cool thing about this is that
at the smaller size, it doesn't quite cover the Sun.
But at the largest size, it does.
This means that there's two major types of
eclipses. An anular eclipse
occurs when the Moon doesn't totally block out
the Sun. It looks like
a bright glowing solar disk poking from behind
the Moon. When the Moon is larger,
it does block out the Sun.
This of course is a total eclipse.
Eclipses are few and far
between but only a few hitting each continent
over the course of several decades.
The red curves here show annular eclipses
where the Moon is smaller than the Sun.
So as you can imagine the
total eclipses which are shown here in blue
are extra special sweet.
If one of these is in the country where you live,
you really need to figure out how
to drive to it. These narrow bands where
the eclipse Moon shadow moves over the ground is called the totality plane.
You have to be within the band to see
a total eclipse, but it's not just ok to be within the band,
You goal should be to get to
the very centre of the band. At the edges,
the totality only lasts a few seconds.
But down in the centre, it can last for
several minutes. Gordon explained that the most
important thing about wherever you're watching the eclipse from
is called the contact times.
C1, or Contact Time 1,
is the exact instant
when the lunar disk touches the solar disk
in the sky. The Moon then continues
to move accros the Sun for quite some time.
This can usually take over an hour.
Then,
C2 happens. C2 is the exact
second when the lunar disk
covers the Sun.
C3 is the moment that the Sun pokes out from behind
the Moon again. It then traverses for
probably an hour or so and then C4
happens.
C4 is the exact moment that the Moon quits
covering the Sun at all.
GORDON>> What I'm telling people to do is
not to miss the partial phase phenomenon
which are the other things
that happen before totality.
You're surroundings change.
The temperature changes,
the lighting changes, the
animals get confused because they think
that nighttime is falling, and if
you're really lucky, you'll get to see
shadow bands, and shadow bands don't happen
at every eclipse and they don't
happen at every observing area.
DESTIN>> What are shadow bands ? GORDON>> It bends the
light and causes
motions of
serpentine shadows
accros the ground
that look like thousands of
snakes crawling
in unison... DESTIN>> Shut up !
GORDON>>... in parallel going away from you DESTIN>> This is bull.
GORDON>> and to the side. DESTIN>> There's no way that happens.
GORDON>> It's unbelievable. I saw them in 2002.
DESTIN>> No ! GORDON>> Absolutely.
DESTIN>> You're saying...
You're saying it's gonna... it might...
look like snakes
crawling on the ground ? GORDON>> Very thin
cause they're little ground shadows
and the way I perceive them
is, picture thousands of
parallel snakes, going like this
going away from you
and to one of the sides depending on...
DESTIN>> WHAT ??? Snakes ?
I thought an eclipse was like, you know,
I'm gonna look at the... NO !
It's about shadow bands for me now.
Here's the deal, in 1842, this guys
was like "it was so striking
that children were running around trying to
grab those things with their hands".
This is a real phenomenon.
I've looked it up, and scientists
do not know what causes it.
They have like
a ton of theories. They don't know. To me, it sounds like
an optical interference thing.
But they don't know. And not a good video on
the internet. There's some videos
but it such a low contrast event
that nobody has ever captured it really well.
So the obvious question,
for Mr Solar-Eclipse-Expert,
is how do we get a good
video of shadow bands ?
How do we capture it ? When does it happen ?
DESTIN>> Just before C2 ? GORDON>> Just before C2 and
just after C3 when
the Sun is a slit. It has
to be that final little narrow slit
otherwise it doesn't work.
DESTIN>> How long does it last?
GORDON>> For about 20 or 30 seconds.
You have to catch it. DESTIN>> So you have to know
it's about to happen. GORDON>> Exactly.
DESTIN>> I rarely ask people to do things,
on SmarterEveryDay videos, but
we have to have to catch videos of shadow bands.
That has to happen. I think...
GORDON>> So the way to do it is setup
a video camera on a manual exposure
on a kingsize
white sheet.
DESTIN>> Or light concrete or something GORDON>> Or light concrete.
DESTIN>> Ok, the next thing is called
the diamond ring.
The diamond ring is the part just before C2
where it actually looks like a diamond ring
if you're taking a photograph of the Sun.
What happens immediately after that
is fascinating. It's called Bailey's Beads.
Now Bailey's Beads is
when the lunar disk is right
about to cover the top of
the solar disk. What's really cool is that
it should be just a really skinny crescent
all the way around right?
But the fact is the Moon has valleys
and mountains.
And those start to close over the solar disk
and you can see the light coming
around those mountains.
It's really cool. It's breaking that solar
light up into beads.
It's called Bailey's Beads. Anyway,
you have to know the exact second that
happens cause it's such a fast phenomenon
you have to be taking photos like at
that instant in order to catch it.
GORDON>> So in 2001, I
programmed, I paid a programmer to
program the first eclipse talking timer.
This is from 2002, and
I still have one that works. DESTIN>> Wow.
So you ...
So you made this back then.
GORDON>> That's right.
So there's the original talking timer.
DESTIN>> You..
GORDON>> From 2002. DESTIN>> You made this
Ok, I don't know
what's more impressive : that you made this in 2002 or that
you have one of these things that still works.
Ok, you know all
the words, it's time to plan out the day
of the solar eclipse.
Step 1: Get to the totality plane,
preferably in the centre of the totality
plane, at that point, you're gonna wait for
the lunar disk to touch
the solar disk, that's C1,
Game on. At that point,
weird stuff starts to go down. The temperature starts to decrease
Animals start to freak out cause it's getting
dark, they think it's about to be night.
All that happens over an extended period of time
well over an hour. After that,
we're approaching C2 and that's
where things get crazy. The three phenomenon
that you're gonna look out for. Number one :
Shadow Bands. I've already figured out
I'm gonna use a big ol' piece of white plastic
to try and see the
shadow bands. I'm excited about that. The second one :
The diamond ring. That's about 5 seconds
before C2, immediately
after that, if you're a good photographer,
you're gonna catch Bailey's Beads. I'm going for it.
Okay? Bam ! C2 hits.
After C2, that's
when you're in totality. You can remove your glasses
and you can look directly at
the Sun. At that point,
somewhere in there is max totality.
I'm told to scan the horizon cause it looks like it's
a 360° sunrise
after that, right before C3,
get your glasses back on, because
the Sun is about to pop out and you don't want to hurt your eyes.
Immediately after C3,
first you've got the Bailey's Beads,
and then you have the diamond ring,
and then, again, if you're lucky,
for 60 seconds after that, there's a possibility
of Shadow Bands.
After that, we're moving towards C4
the temperature is coming back up, everything
is going to be awesome except
it's going to be over. The cool thing about it is
you have to know exactly when
it's gonna happen cause you get one shot
at seeing all this stuff. Back in the day,
you had to send a self-addressed
stamped enveloppe to a space bycenter.
These are Gordon's. He was like, didn't want
to let me borrow them because they're so valuable to him.
Anyway, the way it worked,
is you've got these solar eclipse bulletins
and you had to calculate the exact
moment by interpolation
when your contact times were
for wherever you were on the globe. It was
very, very cumbersome. However,
we have good news,
we live in the age of
smartphones and we also
have a plastic surgeon in Alabama
who decided to create
an App so that you can take your phone out,
geolocate wherever you are
and instantly calculate
your contact times for your position.
And that's flipping awesome, which is why I asked him
if it was real and if
it was gonna work and if he could go with me
to go to Tennessee where the totality plane exists
and test the contact times
inside and outside of the totality
plane. Remember, you want to get to the centre.
I wanted to test his app on the edge.
Check it out. Okay, we're in
the parking lot of a church in
Brentwood, Tennessee. GORDON>> We're..
We're in this sidewalk. DESTIN>> Uh huh.
GORDON>> Right here DESTIN>> Yeah
GORDON>> So this sidewalk is in totality,
that tree over there
where that sign is
is not in totality. DESTIN>> Okay, so I'm gonna
try this. So I got the app
here. Solar Eclipse Timer App.
So I'm going to get my location
GORDON>> Right.
DESTIN>> And then... GORDON>> We're in.
DESTIN>> That's my location right there, right?
Latitude, longitude...
GORDON>> And four contact times. DESTIN>> C1, C2, C3,
C4. Okay.
Load my contact times so I have a
6 seconds duration totality right here.
GORDON>> Right. DESTIN>> Does that make sense ?
GORDON>> It probably would be a little bit shorter
DESTIN>> Somebody's calling me.
Alright, a little bit shorter ?
GORDON>> Yeah, because we need... DESTIN>> Oh we need to turn that off the day of
You don't want people calling you during the...
GORDON>> I have that in the instructions
DESTIN>> Okay GORDON>> a 15 minutes shut off
texting and phone receiving.
DESTIN>> Okay. That's a really good point.
Okay, so, let's go to where
it's not in totality. GORDON>> Right, so we're right here
and we were able to pick it up. DESTIN>> Okay, so we should go
like, to that tree
GORDON>> And we should just get a partial eclipse. DESTIN>> Okay.
Let's do it. So seriously, like
right here, load my times...
get my location...
Look at that.
I've got C1,
and I've got C4
I have no C2
and C3.
I'm not in the totality plane. GORDON>> That's correct.
DESTIN>> We just walked accros a parking lot
and this
tells us if we're gonna se the eclipse or not.
GORDON>> That's exactly right. DESTIN>> How long have you worked on this ?
GORDON>> I've worked on this since last
August and I've tested in the parking lot
about 6 times prior to today.
DESTIN>> Really ? GORDON>> Yes. DESTIN>> Are you excited that it works?
GORDON>> I am. DESTIN>> I'm not very impressed Gordon.
DESTIN>> So, what's it now here ? GORDON>> Oh, here, now wait.
DESTIN>> Solare Eclipse Timer ? GORDON>> Yes.
DESTIN>> That's what you get in the AppStore.
GORDON>> Now.
DESTIN>> I'm trying to sell his app. He's just like
so into that. Go ahead.
GORDON>> You see this is a 6 and it's actually not.
DESTIN>> Okay, I came back into the car to review
the footage.
The man has spent a lot of his time
making this app so that
you can watch the eclipse.
He's testing it. It's a really big deal so
if you want this, you can go to the AppStore
and it's Solar Eclipse Timer and
it talks to you as the eclipse
goes to tell you C1, C2,
C3, and C4.
It's a pretty big deal. GORDON>> It's 9 seconds
over there. DESTIN>> Is it ? GORDON>> Yeah.
DESTIN>> Okay. Seriously, this is the best.
I love this man.
Oh okay, that's so good. Alright.
Erm, yeah.
There's the Moon.
Shoot the gap right there.
Alright, I hope you enjoyed this episode
of SmarterEveryDay. I'm doing our yearly
tradition with my daughter where we go out and we watch
fireworks in our kayaks, but I want
to say thank you to the sponsor this time
which is 23andMe.
If you've never heard of 23andMe,
the term 23 comes from the fact that we, humans,
have 23 pairs of chromosomes.
This looks like a good place to backup sweetheart.
Now,
this is not a sequencing service.
This is a genotyping service. Now there's a difference.
A genotype is like looking for a
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I hear the fireworks. Alright so erm
real quick. If you want to do this test,
which I highly recommend cause it's really cool,
it's pretty simple. You just open the box when they send it to you.
There's a little test kit
in there. All you have to do is spit
in this little thing... I think I can do this
right here in the kayak. Yeah, check it out.
You take this and you spit in it
you fill it up to the line with your spit.
and there's a, basically a stabiliser,
a liquid stabiliser there
you fold it over, you seal it up and mail it off
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if you're genetically predisposed to certain
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please go to 23andMe.com/smarter
and check it out, that will support SmarterEveryDay
and it will also help you
learn more about your ancestry and
your own body. It's pretty cool. And it's time
to look at fireworks.
Aw, it's pretty cool.
If you wanna support SmarterEveryDay, please go to
23andMe.com/smarter
and check it out, this is a hilarious finale
to a video
Okay, I know you're turbo smart, do you ever
get the glasses that are proved for direct solar viewing?
Because if you get the wrong kind,
they can actually open you pupil up more
and let harmful UV in, so
get the right kind and then do your homework
and then you can take them off and look directly at the total solar eclipse.
And more importantly, know when to put them back on
before the Sun pops back out.
And get to see your C3.
Thanks again to 23andMe for supporting
this episode of SmarterEveryDay and thank you
for watching it. I hope you learnt something
here because I learned a lot.
These are my favourite videos where I don't know what's going on
until I just start asking the expert.
I love these videos. Anyway,
if you enjoyed it, and it added value to
your life, please consider subscribing,
only if I've earned it. If not, no big deal. Totally get it.
It's the internet. Do whatever you want.
Also
I have some other stuff on SmarterEveryDay2
I've got a little background
description on how to use
your camera to video
the eclipse. Gordon has a thing called the drift method. I'll put
that on SmarterEveryDay2, also
the conference tape will talk. I'll put that over there too.
I really appreciate you and I really
want video of shadow bands.
Anyway, I'm Destin
Getting Smarter Every Day
Have a good one.