AKCuisine

Nice video clip from the Alaska Air Twitter account, documenting their "Eclipse Flight to Nowhere":

"Yes, it was a 2,000-mile flight to nowhere. But you’ll never believe the views. Shot 100% on @GoPro #GoPro #SolarEclipse2017 "

PDXPremier

Does anyone have the flight # so we can see the flight path on Flight Aware?

rustykettel

All nice and well, but what were the two meal options in F and were hot nuts served?

In all seriousness, I'm seriously considering traveling to the next one. The view from Eugene was very anticlimactic, although the color of the sunset was very unlike a summer sunset. More like fall with long angles and shadows.

jackal

The picture you referenced doesn't really capture the light level accurately (no picture really can). It's dark. Not pitch black dark, but definitely like 45-minutes-after-sunset dark. It looks like late sunset 360 degrees around. But while that (and how quickly it happened) was neat, the coolest part was looking up (with naked eye) to see the sun completely and clearly obscured by the moon and the shimmering corona stretching out to a volume apparently double the size of the actual solar disk.

It's really difficult to capture what it looks like with a camera, even a good SLR, simply because film (or image sensors) just can't capture the dynamic range that the human eye can. But these pictures I dug up on Google (plus the last two, which are from my iPhone), are the closest I can come to approximating what it felt and looked like in the center of the zone of totality.

(Click the last one for a bigger version. It was actually even darker than my phone captured it as, since my phone was adjusting its sensor for low-light conditions.)

rustykettel

AS9671 https://flightaware.com/live/flight/ASA9671

More on Alaska's blog, including the planned flight path. https://blog.alaskaair.com/alaska-ai...solar-eclipse/

jms_uk

I've had no trouble getting my car from Avis, and roads to Salem were empty after midnight.

However, coming back to PDX today from Sublimity took 5.5 hours.

So, didn't have time to do anything other than bring the car back to the airport. Now sitting in the lounge, waiting for the SEA shuttle.

AKCuisine

I'm not sure of the flight number, but this is the path they posted:
And this post also has flight information:

Mehdron

http://www.seattletimes.com/business...solar-eclipse/

johnp012001

As563 Lax-Pdx today adjusted flight plan to fly through totality, then banked so we could see it! Well played Alaska, another example of why I love flying AS.

Eastbay1K

We left the north end of Salem at 1025am. It took about 1:45 back to PDX. The rental car return lot was empty, with a lot of staff ready to go. I'm glad we split immediately.

beckoa

@holland threw an epic party yesterday.

More here: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/commu...20-2017-a.html

I did hear Cicadas just before totality, and then thick clouds obscured the sun And heard a lone rooster announcing the return of light.

Scattered clouds did provide a nice backdrop for the sun for photography. Will try to post some images once I'm back in ANC.

Just pushed back on AS683. Sadly the afternoon flight was 0'd out, so I was unable to move to this and enjoy more bbq.

fairviewroad

I love this! You have a very specific goal and I hope you achieve it! Please dig up this thread in 7 years and report back. ^

wrp96

Do you have a reservation at Gaston's already?

rune87

I was on the Bos to Sea run and we got to see some of the end of it on approach to Seatac. It was pretty cool as the pilot kept us updated.

sdsearch

I don't think it was possible in this eclipse, because the sun was too bright, much brighter (though smaller area of light) than a full moon, and thus at the very least you'd have to compare it to a night lit up by a full moon, not a moonless night overrun by clouds where you see not a single light-emitting/reflecting object in the sky.

To me (between Madras and Warm Springs OR), it looked like many dozens of minutes after sunset when there's still a little bit of color in the sky. (Some of the pictures above may have been done on auto exposure which tends to assume everything is 'average" lighting and thus might look a bit lighter than it looked in actuality.)

I don't know if it'll look more "pitch black dark" in July 2019 around Buenos Aires where the total eclipse will happen right at sunset, at which point the sun's intensity is way diminished compared to what it was at 40ish degrees in this total eclipse on Monday. But if there's ever going to be "pitch black dark" at totality, I would expect it only if the sun was close to the horizon when totality happened, not when totality happened in the middle of day as it did in Monday's case. (Of course, even if the sky is pitch black dark at totality in Buenos Aires, unless you're far on the outskirts, there'll likely be too much light from the ground to tell.

Ie, totality reduces light intensity by a certain amount, and so the lower intensity you're starting from, the lower intensity it should be reduced to.

And, in fact, the sun was at different angles in different parts of the country, so I would expect that in some parts of the country where the sun was higher it didn't get quite as dark (all else being equal, including clouds) as in central Oregon where it was only 40ish degrees above the horizon at about 10:20 am PDT.