This Rejoice & Praise God Sunday Open Thread, with full respect to those who worship God on the Sabbath, is a place to reaffirm our worship of our Creator, our Father, our King Eternal.

It’s also a place to read, post, and discuss news that is worth knowing and sharing. Please post links to any news stories that you use as sources or quote from.

In the QTree, we’re a friendly and civil lot. We encourage free speech and the open exchange and civil discussion of different ideas. Topics aren’t constrained, and sound logic is highly encouraged, all built on a solid foundation of truth and established facts.

We have a policy of mutual respect, shown by civility. Civility encourages discussions, promotes objectivity and rational thought in discourse, and camaraderie in the participants – characteristics we strive toward in our Q Tree community.

Please show respect and consideration for our fellow QTreepers. Before hitting the “post” button, please proofread your post and make sure your opinion addresses the issue only, and does not confront or denigrate the poster. Keep to the topic – avoid “you” and “your”. Here in The Q Tree, personal attacks, name-calling, ridicule, insults, baiting, and other conduct for which a penalty flag would be thrown are VERBOTEN.

In The Q Tree, we’re compatriots, sitting around the campfire, roasting hot dogs, making s’mores, and discussing, agreeing, and disagreeing about whatever interests us. This board will remain a home for those who seek respectful conversations.

Please also consider the Guidelines for posting and discussion printed here: 
https://www.theqtree.com/2019/01/01/dear-maga-open-topic-20190101/

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On this day and every day –

God is in Control
. . . and His Grace is Sufficient, so . . .
Keep Looking Up

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Hopefully, every Sunday, we can find something here that will build us up a little . . . give us a smile . . . and add some joy or peace, very much needed in all our lives.

“This day is holy to the Lord your God;
do not mourn nor weep.” . . .
“Go your way, eat the fat, drink the sweet,
and send portions to those for whom nothing is prepared;
for this day is holy to our Lord.
Do not sorrow,
for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

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To Live is Christ . . .

Philippians 1:21 says, “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Most people focus on the second part of the verse, “to die is gain,” and contemplate the joys of heaven. But we should not overlook what comes before. The importance of the phrase “to live is Christ” cannot be overstated. In all honesty, this phrase should be central to every Christian’s life.

In this statement, the apostle Paul is saying that everything he has tried to be, everything he is, and everything he looked forward to being pointed to Christ. From the time of Paul’s conversion until his martyrdom, every move he made was aimed at advancing the knowledge, gospel, and church of Christ. Paul’s singular aim was to bring glory to Jesus.

“To live is Christ” means that we proclaim the gospel of Christ. Paul preached in synagogues; he preached at riversides; he preached as a prisoner; he preached as an apostle; he preached as a tentmaker. His message was constant: “Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2). He brought the message of Christ’s sacrifice to kings, soldiers, statesmen, priests, and philosophers, Jews and Gentiles, men and women. He would preach to literally anyone who would listen.

“To live is Christ” means that we imitate the example of Christ. Everything that Jesus did and said, that’s what Paul wanted to do and say. The church benefitted from his godly example: “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1). What would Jesus do? That’s what we want to do.

“To live is Christ” means that we pursue the knowledge of Christ. We want to know Christ better and better each day. Not just a set of facts about Christ, but Christ Himself. “I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead” (Philippians 3:10-11).

“To live is Christ” means that we are willing to give up anything that prevents us from having Christ. Paul’s testimony in this regard: “Whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him” (Philippians 3:7-9). We cling to the promise of our Lord in Mark 10:29-30 that our sacrifices for Jesus’ sake will be repaid a hundredfold.

“To live is Christ” means that Christ is our focus, our goal, and our chief desire. Christ is the center point of our mind, heart, body and soul. Everything that we do, we do for Christ’s glory. As we run the “race marked out for us,” we lay aside the entangling sin and worldly distractions, “fixing our eyes on Jesus” (Hebrews 12:1-2). He is our life.

https://www.gotquestions.org/to-live-is-Christ.html

The Annular Eclipse of 14 October 2023

I posted about this a couple of weeks ago (see sidebar, last entry as of now…well until Wolf adds this post to the sidebar right underneath it). This is an event that would be a total solar eclipse…except that the Moon is near the farthest point in its orbit when it happens, so it’s consequently farther away and appears smaller. Too small, in fact, to cover the disk of the Sun. (The fact that the Sun is slightly closer to the Earth in January than it is in July–because of Earth‘s elliptical orbit around the Sun–probably doesn’t play much of a role; in October it ought to be pretty close to its average distance to Earth.)

And yes…I remember a conversation where I begged people to say “the far side of the moon” to mean the side we don’t see. Because that far side isn’t always dark; it’s quite well lit up when we see the new moon; at new moon the side facing us is the actual dark side of the moon.

Well moons don’t get any newer than when there’s a solar eclipse; we literally see exactly none of the lit side of the moon at those times; it’s perfectly back-lit. So this being my third full eclipse (another annular also in Albuquerque back in 2012, and the total eclipse in 2017), I’ve now seen the entire dark side (and this time it’s correct to say it) three times.

Anyway, it seems like I did everything I could to try to sabotage myself without quite succeeding in doing so. I planned to leave before 4 AM, it was 5 AM when I left. I left the camera I intended to use at home (idiot!) but had every other camera including my second choice (ironically a more expensive camera by far). I forgot to charge the batteries…one was dead, one was halfway there and I had trouble finding it. I also forgot to hang a weight off the tripod.

OK so the original plan was to drive to Albuquerque from Colorado Springs. Albuquerque was almost right in the middle of the track for this thing; the eclipse would last the longest and the Moon would almost perfectly center itself on the Sun…my eyeball, the moon, and the Sun would be in a perfect line for a split second. But the late departure meant I had to take more extreme measures.

Refer to the map:

I-25, which comes down from Colorado Springs is the thick line that comes into the frame at the top, just to the right of center. You’ll notice it meanders a bit. Just after entering the eclipse path, it jogs northwest, and gets no further in; finally it reaches Albuquerque.

I decided, because I was running late, to do something desperate. Notice right after I-25 enters the path, there’s a road running southeast from it (US-84). That’s a two lane road with very little traffic, I could get on that and drop down to the east-west road (I-40) then turn west and actually be getting deeper into the zone.

The eclipse was in progress by the time I reached US-84. I got about halfway down I-40 from US-84 to the next diagonal road (which also runs the wrong way!), stopped and set up. This was exit 234 if memory serves, and if you want to follow along on a more sophisticated map.

By the time I set up my equipment, the eclipse was well under way.

The Equipment

OK, let’s see, I had a Canon R5–roughly $3500. A Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.0-5.6 L, roughly $2200. A $250 tripod. And a two dollar filter to dim the sun enough it didn’t roast the electronics in the camera.

Clearly, before next April’s eclipse I will need a better camera.

OK, seriously, the filter is a piece of thin cardboard with a 1×5 inch window in it; the window has the same plastic they use in eclipse glasses. It’s handy for quick looks at the sun…or it can be duct taped over a camera lens (make sure the duct tape covers any part of the lens the filter does not).

And, incidentally, the R5 is arguably the best EOS camera Canon makes right now, though the R3 is better at a number of things. But not for this job. So I guess I have no choice but to improve the filter.

Oh, yeah, I forgot the duct tape. Fortunately gas station convenience stores usually sell it. Not cheap but IneededitrighteffingNOW!

The filter works…but it imparts an orange glow to everything, and the sun gets an orange tinge to it. Well it would if it weren’t blown out in the images. Which is fine, it should look white not orange anyway. (I could conceivably get photographs of sunspots if I didn’t blow out the sun by mistake; I know I did with the same filter on a different camera during the Venus transit of 2012.) In a way the event looked better through regular cheapass eclipse glasses (which I also had with me), because they aren’t obviously glaring orange in areas that ought to be jett black.

Here’s the first picture I took after setting up.

(Cropped from 8192×5464 pixels full frame down to 3000×2000, then reduced in size 50 percent to 1500×1000.)

The Moon came in from about 45 degrees clockwise from the top (1:30 though I shouldn’t use clock positions to indicate directions here because someone might think I am actually giving the time). So given that you can see it has 60 percent of the way across the Sun already. I cut it close!

Closer to annularity:

This is right about the point (just a bit later actually) where the crescent of the Sun starts to curve inwards at the tips. That can only happen if the occluding body isn’t as wide (in terms of angle of sky) as the Sun. Or in other words, you won’t see it look like this shortly before a total eclipse.

Getting very close.

At this point things happen rapidly. I started hitting the button on the bulb (wire remote) every second or so, I can flip through them on my computer and watch the horns of the crescent grow longer. (I want to figure out how to make a time lapse movie out of them. And yes the camera could probably have done that, except I couldn’t remember how to set it up and certainly didn’t have time to do it right there and then!)

Oh, good, I wasn’t imagining things! This is 57 seconds after the previous picture:

This is the moment right before annularity. The ring is complete…except for two breaks. These are due to mountains on the moon cutting off the Sun’s disk, still…for just that moment. As the moon moves further down and to the left the mounts will eventually fall completely inside the Sun’s disk.

A similar effect happens during a total eclipse but is much more obvious, because the sun shining between the mountain peaks is the ONLY sunlight in view (the rest of the ring is absent). This is called “Bailey’s beads.” Bailey’s beads are visible with the unaided eye and are evidence the moon has mountains and is not an absolutely smooth sphere. (This was controversial around Galileo’s time when many believed everything in the sky was pristine and perfect. Clearly no Chinese weather balloons back then!)

I wasn’t in the middle of the path so the “ring of fire” was not of uniform thickness even at mid eclipse. At roughly 10:38 AM Moutain Daylight Time, this is as close as it came from where I was:

You’ll notice in these last three pictures the sun is apparently moving up and to the right. I didn’t bother trying to center it when I cropped the big 45MP image. Instead I made sure to crop exactly the same area off each picture, so you could see the (apparent) motion of both the Sun and Moon as the eclipse progressed.

Several times I had to loosen the tripod and shift to keep the Sun/Moon from leaving the frame entirely, but I did not have to do that at this time, and so what you see is the real relative motion of the Sun and Moon against the sky as A) the Earth rotates, causing the illusion of motion from east to west, B) the Sun moves, ever so slowly reoughly west to east, taking a full year to completely circule through the entire sky. (That’s what a year is, in fact.) This is “real” motion against the background stars…except for the fact that it’s really us on Earth moving, in the other direction! The Moon is also moving west to east across the sky, about 12-13 times faster than the sun; New Moon is when it laps the sun going across the sky. (And this time it really is the Moon that is moving.)

And now annularity ends.

Again, we see the effect of mountains on the lunar rim. People on those mountains, at that moment would see Earth and Sun on the horizon…in two exactly opposite directions. (I did not have to move the camera, but I did crop this from a different location in the frame, so that’s why it seems to be centered again.)

The total duration here, according to the timestamps, is 3 minutes, 49 seconds.

The moon looks like it’s dropping through the center of the bottom side of the Sun. In fact, I joked with another eclipse watcher who was there, that I was now taking pictures of the Turkish flag..which is often hung downwards like a banner (much like the US flag is hung behind the Speaker’s chair in the House of Reprehensibles), with the crescent points towards the ground. Of course the Turkish flag also has a big five pointed star on it.

Last one…the moon almost completely departed, Down and left the tiniest “cut”.

Many lessons learned for next April. Better filter. Dial down the exposure a bit (and maybe catch some sunspots if there are any), and the focus could be a tiny bit sharper.

Until then…