West Michigan resident and astronomy enthusiast Matthew Palmieri traveled to Lebanon, IN with his wife and two daughters over the weekend to view the 2024 solar eclipse.
Palmieri used his personal 6″ Newtonian telescope, reflected with a solar filter to make viewing safe, to capture stunning images of the eclipse.
(Courtesy, Matthew Palmieri)
The band director for Southwest Middle High School in Grand Rapids, Palmieri is as passionate about the cosmos as he is about music.
“Seeing the eclipse lets you see the solar system as a three dimensional place, and it gives you a glimpse of our place in the universe,” Palmieri told WKTV Journal. “The closest experience I’ve had to seeing the eclipse was seeing the Grand Canyon.”
WKTV Government Channel 26 is offering live coverage of the upcoming total solar eclipse!
Tune in Monday, April 8 from 1 p.m. – 4 p.m. and see this stunning solar display live from NASA’s view.
Experience this amazing event with us as a total solar eclipse moves across Mexico, the United States and Canada, and see incredible views from various sites along its path.
Coverage of the eclipse courtesy of NASA TV. For more information about the eclipse, go to www.nasa.gov.
Residents of North America were treated to either a full or partial eclipse of the sun on August 21. To safely view the solar eclipse, many enthusiasts could be seen sporting specially designed solar eclipse glasses.
Since the next total solar eclipse won’t take place in the U.S. until 2024, there’s no need to let those glasses collect dust, especially when students around the world can put them to good use much sooner.
Grand Valley State University’s Regional Math and Science Center (RMSC) will be collecting eclipse glasses through September 15, which will then be sent to schools in South America and Asia through the organization Astronomers Without Borders for when eclipses cross those continents in 2019.
“These schools cannot afford to purchase eclipse glasses themselves, so we want to donate them so children all over the world can enjoy science,” said Kathy Agee, RMSC science program coordinator.
According to the Astronomers Without Borders website, Grand Valley is the only designated collection location in the Grand Rapids area for eclipse glasses. The center is located in Mackinac Hall, room C-1-120, on the Allendale Campus, and glasses can be dropped off during normal business hours of Monday-Friday, from 8 a.m.-5 p.m.
For more information, contact the RMSC at 616-331-2267.
Today all of North America will be treated to an eclipse of the sun, and NASA Television will carry it live from coast to coast from unique vantage points on the ground and from aircraft and spacecraft.
Programming begins at noon EDT with a preview show hosted from Charleston, South Carolina. That program is followed by the main show which begins at 1 p.m. EDT.
The main program will cover of path of the eclipse from Oregon to South Carolina. The program will feature views from jet aircraft, high-altitude balloons, satellites and specially modified telescopes. It will also include live reports from Salem, Oregon, Idaho Falls, Idaho, Beatrice, Nebraska, Jefferson City, Missouri, Carbondale, Illinois, Hopkinsville, Kentucky, Clarksville, Tennessee and at our home base at the College of Charleston (SC).
NASA TV may be seen on WKTV 26 and AT&T 99 Government. Please note: All content is subject to change in real time and without notice.
For the first time in 40 years, the North American continent will experience a total solar eclipse, where the moon is between the sun and earth casting its shadow on the earth.
And depending where you are on Aug. 21 will determine how much of the solar eclipse you will see, according to David DeBryun, the president of the Grand Rapids Amateur Astrological Association.
“Bad news is we are not going to see a total eclipse in Grand Rapids,” DeBryun said during a special interview with WKTV’s Bre Wilson. During that interview, DeBryun said that the Grand Rapids area will experience about an 85 percent of the eclipse.
Bre Wilson with David DeBryun
He also noted that the Grand Rapids Public Museum, 272 Pearl St. SW, will be hosting a special Eclipse Day Party on Aug. 21 from 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. The event will include hands-on solar related activity booths, multiple shows on the half hour of “Eclipses and Phases of the Moon” in the Chaffee Planetarium, and a live stream of the total eclipse will be shown int he Meijer Theater. All Eclipse Party activities will be included with general admission to the Museum. For more, visit grpm.org.
While several members of the GRAAA will be on hand at the Eclipse Day Party, DeBryun will not be one of them. He plans to be part of a group heading to Nebraska to see the eclipse. In fact, he has travelled the world to experience solar eclipses, which are a rare occurrence. The next total solar eclipse is July 2, 2019 and will across southern Africa.
DeBryun’s first solar eclipse was in 1963, when he was a young boy. “Boy do I remember that because that was the most dramatic thing I had seen in nature at that point,” he said. “It was just overwhelming. And it was the impetus for me to travel the far corners of the earth in the time since then to witness five of these total eclipses of the sun.”
With the total solar eclipse happening only about 70 miles away from the Grand Rapids area and going through such major cities as St. Louis and Nashville, DeBryun encourages residents to make the trip to experience the phenomenon especially since the next time a total solar eclipse will travel across West Michigan will be in the year 2099.
“I know I won’t make that,” he said with a a laugh.
If you plan to check out the solar eclipse, DeBryun encourages people to use the safe viewing glasses available at the Public Museum or to make an eclipse box. For other tips and more discussion about the solar eclipse, check out the interview with DeBryun airing on WKTV channel 25 at 9:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. Aug. 14; 7 and 11 p.m. Aug. 15; 11:30 a.m. Aug. 16; and noon and 7:30 p.m. Aug. 18.
