Starting with this post, Bypass Avenue will expand to cover some of my personal commentaries about non-health related items such as the solar eclipse which occurred yesterday. This post also appears at my Hawaii Files Blog site.
By Melvin Ah Ching, Editor & Publisher, The Hawaii Files Blog
As solar eclipses go, yesterday’s partial one in Honolulu was adequately good. The Great American Solar Eclipse of 2017 was a huge phenomena and event throughout the continental United States as the path of totality traveled eastward in a narrow 70 mile wide band from the Oregon coast to the tip of South Carolina. Much of the continent had a good partial eclipse that covered most of the sun.
In a solar eclipse, the moon’s shadow blots out the sunlight as it passes between the sun and the Earth. During totality that shadow blocks out nearly all sunlight except for a narrow band around the perimeter that creates a remarkable and unforgettable view. Solar eclipses are rare occurrences that track within small and varied regions of Earth’s surface. Within the eclipse’s band, many areas get a partial eclipse while totality only occurs within a smaller zone.
Millions of people on the U.S. continent witnessed and captured images of the eclipse going into and out of totality including the 2 minute long phase of full shadowed coverage.
In Honolulu, my friend Lisa Davidson and I awoke early and trekked to the Waialae Kahala Beach Park an hour before sunrise to secure a good viewing spot that I scoped out the day before. Anticipating the eclipse, which started near Hawaii, Lisa and I both photographed the changing light around us as night receded into the new day. The rising sun was going to be in the eclipse process. I had to be prepared for that.
I had three cameras with me including my Canon 600D SLR with a 300mm lens set up on a tripod, Fujifilm HS10 EVF with a wide to long built in zoom lens, and a Samsung smart phone that can also do pictures. Lisa had her trusty little Samsung that she used to catch the “feel” of the moments. We both had protective eclipse viewers that I got last year from Bishop Museum. I used the 58mm screw on sun filter for the cameras to get eclipse images.
We were set. We waited. Talked. Photographed. The sunrise was pretty, but the clouds were getting in the way. I was wondering if the clouds would pre-empt my eclipse view.
Eclipse times for Hawaii from timeanddate.com.
Sunrise in Honolulu was at 6:11 am. Moonrise was 2 minutes earlier at 6:09am. The eclipse began at 5:50am before the sun rose. Everything was in motion for a good eclipse except for the clouds.
It was not until 7:16 am that I caught my first fleeting glimpse of the sun poking through the clouds. I fired the Canon for a continuous burst of images as the clouds slowly broke and the sun revealed its new face for a few moments. And then the clouds rolled back in.
I got a few images but I wanted more. My wish came true as the clouds slowly blew away and the eclipsed sun appeared again as I fired more frames off with the camera. I got my 20% or probably a little less than that. It was better than nothing and certainly better than the 10% that I got during last year’s eclipse from Magic Island.
I snapped more photos in the next 15 minutes of the waning spectacle.
Lisa was thrilled as she was able to see the eclipse through my camera’s LCD screen and the protective filters that allowed us to view the show with our own eyes. She was very thankful that I shared these moments with her.
By 7:30 in the morning the eclipse was over. The sun was out, the day was bright and life would continue as it always does.
It turns out that this year’s solar eclipse is the last one to be visible in Hawaii until April 8, 2024, when another total eclipse will be viewable in the continental United States. The next total solar eclipse occurs in the southeastern Pacific Ocean and over the South American countries of Chile and Argentina on July 2, 2019.
Photos by Mel unless indicated.
This is one of the best shots I got of yesterday’s solar eclipse. Investing in a screw on solar lens filter is worth the money!
The beautiful but sunlight blocking clouds over Koko Head.
Catching a live video stream while waiting for clouds to depart.
The beautiful Hawaiian sunrise and clouds blocked the sun for nearly 40 minutes after the eclipse began.
Watching a live stream from Oregon as we waited out the clouds.
You can get a decent shot out of your cell phone camera if you put one of those protective eye safety filters in front of your camera lens. Lisa did that and it got her this picture with the tiny sun chopped slightly to the bottom left.
Solar eclipse view from Ontario, Canada. Keith Watson Photography.
Totality, August 21, 2017 – Kansas, United States. Michael Watson, photographer.
International Space Station in transit ahead of the moon. NASA. You can also see sunspots in this excellent photo.
KHON TV’s McKenna Maduli reports on the eclipse from Waialae Kahala Beach park not too far away from where we were. There are 3 clips embedded in this video composite.
Additional Links:
Reboot 2019 | Are You Happy Now?
It’s time to once again RE-BOOT this blog after months of neglect. Heh… I’ve been kind of being a little slack in my life too. Have had to cope with some life changes…. again, though none of them bad. May blog about that at a later time.
Just want to say “Happy New Year” to the few readers who may be monitoring this blog and to anyone who stumbles in. December 30, 2018 marked the third year since my surgery back in 2015. I am still here and happy to be alive.
In an effort to make this blog regular and relevant again I am going to be posting answers to questions from an Android app that I just downloaded yesterday. It is called Questions Diary and every day you are supposed to answer a question about yourself. The answer is saved to your device and at the end of one year, the app is supposed to ask the same questions again…. so let’s start… here is the first question.
Today is Saturday, January 26, 2019,
Are You Happy Now?
Some of the recorded walk steps from this morning with the Pedometer app running on my low end Alcatel device. The count is only for the return trip back to my home.
Generally speaking, I am “happy”. Happiness is relative, fleeting at times. One surely can’t be happy all of the time. Life is filled with setbacks. These can happen frequently…. death in the family. loss of a job, financial struggles and more.
Still I try to maintain some level of happiness by being with or talking to friends and relatives. Engaging in hobbies or taking short trips makes me happy. I am most happy when I am out observing my world and documenting it through photography and video.
Distracting myself is a way for me to maintain some level of happiness.
With this first post, this hopefully is the start of something new and consistent. Otherwise here are a couple of other pictures:
The walking path on Magic Island, Ala Moana Beach Park, Honolulu HI.
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Posted in Commentary, Health, One Question, Walking
Tagged commentary, Hawaii, health, One Question, walking