- Tallahassee will see a partial solar eclipse on Monday, but it may be hard to notice unless you're using solar eclipse glasses to look at the sun or observing shadows on the ground.
- The Challenger Learning Center is providing telescopes and selling solar eclipse glasses to help enhance the eclipse viewing experience with a view of totality inside their brand new state-of-the-art planetarium.
- Watch the video to find out what a partial solar eclipse is, what to look for.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
A celebration of science, right here in the downtown Tallahassee neighborhood.
I’m First To Know Meteorologist Riley Winch at the Challenger Learning Center where they are preparing for Monday’s solar eclipse, and you are invited!
Between 1:30 and 4:30pm Monday, the Challenger Learning Center is offering free admission to the public.
"So this is the courtyard space where we'll have some telescopes set up with the Tallahassee Astronomical Society."
That's Kaley Gross, the Marketing and Communications Manager at the Challenger Learning Center.
She says they'll provide educational content and viewing opportunities for the partial solar eclipse in Tallahassee.
"It’s a really cool viewing point because we have a break between the buildings here and we’re able to see the sun really as it travels across the entirety of the horizon there.”
While the moon will be blocking the sun here in Tallahassee, our experience will be much different than our friends in the path of totality in the United States that stretches from Texas to Maine.
Dr. David Collins, a professor of Physics at Florida State University, explains that “a total solar eclipse is when the moon makes a shadow on the Earth from the sun, so as you’re standing on the Earth you’ll see the moon blocking the sun completely.”
This is what brings darkness to the sky and the classic ring of fire around the moon as it blocks the sun.
However, throughout the eclipse here in the Big Bend and Southern Georgia, “we’ll still see a lot of daylight. But if you’re paying attention and have good eclipse glasses on, if you have eclipse glasses on, then what you’ll see in the sun if you look right at it, normally the sun is round, but you’ll see a bite taken out of it, and that’s the moon.”
If you’re missing out on the path of totality, don’t worry. At the Challenger Learning Center’s event,
“We’re also going to have a livestream in our planetarium of NASA’s eclipse coverage that is going to show eclipse coverage all throughout the country.”
If you’re looking for solar eclipse glasses to safely observe the event, the learning center is selling them for $2 each in their gift shop. Remember that in our area, solar eclipse glasses are required to look at the sun for the entire eclipse.
From The Challenger Learning Center in Downtown Tallahassee, I’m Meteorologist Riley Winch, ABC 27.
