The remarkable eclipse of 21 August 2017

by Dr Shadia Habbal (Institute for Astronomy, UH)

Thursday Sep 14, 2017, 3:30 PM → 4:30 PM Pacific/Honolulu

112 (Watanabe Hall)

The total solar eclipse of 21 August 2017 offered rare observing opportunities as the lunar shadow traversed an uninterrupted landmass of approximately 3000 miles, starting from western Oregon to South Carolina. Taking advantage of this unique opportunity, my international team, known as the Solar Wind Sherpas, spread across five observing sites, with almost identical equipment. In this presentation, I will describe the unique advantages of total solar eclipses for exploring the physics, chemistry and thermodynamics of the solar corona. I will briefly describe the imaging and spectroscopic observations that we carry out. I will present some scientific highlights from previous eclipse observations, and end with a few fresh off the press results from this eclipse.