(light music) (camera beeps) (upbeat music) - Thanks for joining us.

I'm Fred Martino.

In Focus, the 2024 eclipse coming up on April 8th.

WSIU will bring you the eclipse program taking place at Saluki Stadium starting at 11 o'clock in the morning.

At Southern Illinois University Carbondale researchers have been planning for this event for a very long time.

In fact, a year ago, a team traveled to Australia to experience a total eclipse there.

SIU student Kaylee Wobig produced this report.

(pensive music) (pensive music continues) - So the trip to rate was split up into two groups.

There was the DEB initiative group made up of four of us that arrived a couple days before the actual study abroad students.

And we all flew into Perth, both groups.

And then we would rent vehicles and make our way north, we ran Western Australia and we would make our way north stopping at different small community centers where we would do nighttime observational outreach in association with Astrotourism group that was out of Australia.

So we would join them in different observations to get the public excited about the amazing observational opportunities in Western Australia, 'cause it's so dark, they have so little light pollution.

You can see a beautiful sky.

So as we progressed, the DEB group, the team of four that I was with, we were learning our equipment because it was all new to us.

We had a couple of practices here in the States, but a lot of that was us getting experience with the DEB telescope, which you see here, and the want telescope, which you see here.

And so we were using these outreach opportunities to familiarize ourselves with the equipment.

(gentle music) - At these public astronomy events, we would set up the telescopes and we would kind of aim it at like a different celestial object in the sky.

So a nebula or a star or something along those lines.

We mainly focused on the Orion Nebula because that tends like drawing some people, like "What am I looking at?"

We can explain quite a bit about what they're looking at, or some really cool stars.

And what we would do is we would educate them about Colfax, about the nebula or the star.

- I got there with three students actually, and we rented SUVs and started our, what was to be a four-day trek from Perth up to Exmouth Australia.

And each evening we met up with a group from Western Australia's Astrotourism and did some outreach with them along the way, which was really awesome.

We got to see the dark skies, the southern hemisphere skies, which are totally different or mostly different than ours here.

Some different constellations, different galaxies you can see.

So it was pretty incredible.

- While there are more eclipses than people sometimes think, there's an eclipse average of 18 months somewhere in the world, but so much of the world is covered in water or just really difficult places to get to that to see a total eclipse, you have to kind of go to some pretty obscure places to be able to catch one.

And with us knowing that in 2024 we're going to be using new equipment, new software set up to what we used in 2017, we have to rehearse all of this and troubleshoot our work.

And so what we have to do is go find an eclipse.

And it just so happens that the one that has was going over a land just happened to be in Australia this time.

- This was a practice run with that equipment.

And this is actually all in preparation for the eclipse that's happening in next year at Carbondale.

So 'cause the eclipse in Australia, it was supposed to last minute, I say it was more like 40 seconds was not enough time whatsoever.

But the eclipse in Carbondale next year is going to be about four minutes long, I believe.

And I'm telling you it is, that is an insanely long eclipse.

I think the longest eclipse ever was about seven minutes.

So the fact that we are getting a four-minute eclipse is absolutely insane.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) - The thing that we're adding to the DEB Initiative is that we're going to attempt to do live or nearly live feed of the data that we're collecting.

So there's gonna be groups through Mexico, the United States, up into Canada, and we'll have scattered throughout the DEB setups, these telescopes and cameras.

And we will do a minimal amount of processing to where we can then upload high dynamic range images of the eclipse.

So through the magic of computers and controlling cameras, the exposures we can get details that we can stack images together until we get a high dynamic range.

You're seeing the area of interest at different exposures that you wouldn't be able to get with a single image.

- The other piece of it though, the Dynamic Eclipse Broadcast Initiative, that's our little bitty telescopes here.

These, we took two of these and these are solar scopes.

We image, again, the solar disc or the sun, the regular round part of it, the part that you can see at any time.

And the corona, which is the part that you can only see during a total solar eclipse.

So practicing with both sets of scopes was really important.

Also, getting some data on the corona.

We hope to get data and we hope to figure out if our exposure levels were correct and we needed to verify that our exposures were correct because we haven't used this equipment before for that sort of thing.

But you can't just walk out and image the corona on any given day.

You gotta wait for a total solar eclipse to do that.

- So we were really kind of encouraging people to get interested in space.

That's kind of like one of the big things that they were aiming for was to get people reinvested in space and getting curious about the stars essentially and getting interested in astronomy.

And the outreach that we did was very successful.

I would say we had so many people looking through our telescopes, asking us questions.

I loved all the kids who would come up and ask us different questions.

We'd show them how to kinda look through the telescopes and explain what they were looking at.

And it was just a lot of fun with the public outreach and explaining what we were doing.

- So for the students, what could they gain from the trip or what did I hope they gained.

Experience, mostly.

So we went there with scopes like this one.

We took two of these solar scopes, this one's a hydrogen alpha scope.

You need to get a little bit of experience running them and taking images with them.

So that was one thing that I hoped to gain.

This scope in particular is gonna be used for telescope feeds for Eclipse 2023 and 2024.

They'll show the partial eclipse and then totality.

- With the both the 2017 Citizen CATE Experiment and the DEB Initiative, public outreach, STEM or STEAM outreach is a big part of it.

We're trying to get people excited about science, in this case, specifically astronomy, heliophysics.

So we do that, we use this event to build excitement within the communities about science.

So people might be inspired to actually pursue that, maybe pay a little bit more attention in math class or science class and think about that as a career path.

And so we do as much public outreach as we can normally when you're in a STEM field, but with something, when that's gathering as much attention as an eclipse, it's an excellent opportunity to get people excited.

So we're always trying to do outreach tying into some part of people's lives that they can relate to.

- And so really this trip was important, because it was a practice run for next year, and see like, you know, what can we improve?

What went well, what didn't go well?

And we're gonna have a longer eclipse to kind of help us, if something does goes wrong, we have some time to kind of fix that for next year.

And so this was really a practice run for what's gonna come next year.

There's a lot of things that I learned.

First of all, practice makes perfect.

If you have something incredibly important, make sure that you have everything like fine tuned, you know, in advance.

Make sure you practice everything, because practice, you know, made it so efficient at getting everything set up, ready to go.

And another thing too is that if failure happens, then don't take it to heart, because there are times where like, you know, things didn't go the way we wanted to.

Alignments are off because we're in a whole different hemisphere.

We're used to the northern hemisphere and the computers used to aligning the telescope this way.

Now we're in a completely different hemisphere, new stars, so get used to having failure happen.

But failure is how you improve.

If you just allow failure to bug you for the rest of your life, you're not gonna get anywhere from that.

'Cause we had a lot, we had several hiccups on the trip leading up to the eclipse itself.

And so, I was so glad that we experienced those hiccups before the eclipse so that way we can kind of get them out of the way and keep going, so that way, you know, come day of the eclipse, it was a very smooth run on our end and it was so much fun.

Also, the fact that like treat every chance very carefully, because, once again, eclipses are rare.

You have to be ready.

Don't take the things that are given to you for granted these chances that you have for granted, because it's one and done, so very important on specific events.

And coming outta the trip, how I felt was, I was just blown away.

I got to see animal like once, going back to the animal part of me, animals I've never seen before, foods that I've never tasted before, drinks I've never drank before.

Like there was this like gas station coffee, it's so weird, but it's this gas station coffee that tasted so good and you can only get in Australia.

And so it was, it kept me alive a couple of times, you know, and just like to appreciate the little things because out there in the outback, but there ain't no internet, there's nothing, you know, so you just have to appreciate the sights, the smells, the sounds because one moment you're landing in Australia, the next you're waving goodbye on the plane.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) - And once again, WSIU will bring you the Eclipse Day program from Saluki Stadium starting at 11 o'clock in the morning Monday, April 8th.

And joining me for the rest of this half hour, Bob Bear, he is director of the Public astronomy observation program at SIU Carbondale.

Bob, thank you so much for being with us today.

- Thanks for having mem Fred.

- It is good to have you here.

What an amazing experience this will be.

And you already had amazing experiences we saw there in Australia.

People may be wondering, what did you learn in Australia that helps to prepare you for the 2024 eclipse April 8th?

- Well, Australia was a really cool thing and it was something that we hadn't done before, doing a combined study abroad with the students and a research group going, and then having them work with us.

So that actually prepared those students and us for this upcoming eclipse in that they learned how to run sun funnels to show images of the partial eclipse and even totality, which was pretty incredible.

But in addition to that, the research section of that trip, the research piece of it was to test our telescopes and see how they performed, to test the software, to see how that performed and then take that information back, the exposures that we use, the spacing between the exposures to create these HDR images of totality that we're integrating into our observations now.

- So a lot gained from that trip.

- Yeah, yeah, there really was a lot.

And then, what was really interesting in Australia, unexpected is, you know, the morning of the eclipse, just probably five hours before the eclipse we got notice that two of our grants were selected for funding.

So that was something that was a really interesting email to wake up to at 5:00 AM.

(both laughing) - Yes, a very good timing.

And we're gonna talk more about the funding and the grants coming up.

People wanna know though, right off the bat, including me, why is this a subject for study?

What can you learn during an eclipse that's not possible during other times?

- So, it's pretty incredible.

There's a lot that can be learned in a lot of different fields.

So for some people it's that cultural learning, the psychology of it.

For me it's the science, and in large part the engagement.

Like how people learn, what gets them excited about science, what gets them engaged.

But from a scientific standpoint over the years, one of the most famous was the Eddington Experiment where a team that observed in multiple locations around the world was able to see sunlight or a star was what it was exactly, a distant star close to the sun that appeared to shift during a total solar eclipse.

Now it didn't happen exactly when the eclipse happened.

It only happened because that star was close to the sun and the light from the star bent around it.

And so this verified Einstein's Theory of General Relativity.

We also have helium being discovered from observations of the spectra of the sun.

And for us, it's the acceleration of the inner corona.

We can only see that down really close to the Sun, at least from Earth.

We can only see it during a total solar eclipse.

And these really expensive NASA satellites that we have out there that are awesome, that capture the outer corona don't actually capture that inner corona.

So these measurements are pretty important that are being done.

- Okay.

So anything else that you want to talk about in terms of specific things that you are going to be studying for the April eclipse?

- So for us, for this eclipse, for the April eclipse, we have about 82 telescope teams from Mexico to Canada.

- [Fred] 82?

- 82.

- Wow.

- Which is pretty incredible.

We started out going for about 40.

We got lucky with another project called Einstein's Incredible Universe, which added 20 additional teams and then a lot of volunteer additional teams coming in privately funded to have their own telescope set up.

So this allows us to image the Corona all along the path of totality.

And then what we're doing is we're looking at what the corona looks like.

It mimics the magnetic field of the Sun.

And that inner corona does some weird things.

It doesn't just accelerate out linearly, it doesn't just blow off the Sun and keep going at constant velocity.

It's changed by the magnetic fields there, and that's what we're studying specifically.

And it has applications to learning about solar flares, hopefully someday being able to predict them better, so that we don't have disruptions like, as you know, that we get sometimes because of solar flares, especially with like broadcast.

- Very interesting.

So yes, you'll be studying, observing during the eclipse, but the data that you gather will allow for study for some time.

- It will.

And because we have that large group of 82 volunteers, and there's over 300 people involved in this, most of them students.

And they're spread out all across North America, not just in the eclipse path, but it forms like a baseline of the study.

So there's other teams that might observe from one or two locations.

Ours is, you know, I say nationwide, but it's Mexico and Canada as well.

- So the traveling didn't end when a team went to Australia.

There's more traveling going for this eclipse as well.

- There is for a lot of other teams.

We have a team from SIU, a student team that's going to Vincennes University.

We're getting a little separation between us and them.

And that's for data collection.

But primarily, the data collection is like a almost an add-on to that one.

The primary reason for that trip is to get those images of totality for engagement, for showing people what looks like live.

- Okay.

Well you referenced this earlier, SIU received a number of grants related to the eclipse.

And I wanna start with grant money for eclipse related events like Eclipse Day at Saluki Stadium that we are airing here at WSIU, and of course is airing worldwide on, on YouTube as part of a stream.

- Yeah, So that was really exciting to me.

That was part of, one of those letters we got in Australia.

And the money's not direct for the events, it's for making the events reach well beyond this campus.

So it's that virtualization of it.

And so we talk about the stream, the telescope feeds, NASA edge is a big part of that and they are managing the telescope feeds coming in that day.

And then providing clean telescope feeds out specifically for the media coming outta campus, but also the subject matter experts coming in that are gonna be on the stage of the live stadium show as well as the SIU stream.

And this is long term.

So this goes well beyond the eclipse.

This is just kind of our big kicking off point.

- Yeah, and a lot of people coming here to see the eclipse here, 'cause we're one of the best places in North America to see the eclipse, weather permitting, right?

I mean let's touch on that a little bit, because knowing how does weather affect what we will or won't see?

- Well, it all has to do with clouds.

And there's always clouds.

And I say that, and then I know it's like this weekend when I was practicing on Saturday with our team, there wasn't a whole lot of, there was a little bit of clouds, but it wasn't bad.

Sometimes you do get that perfectly clear day, but it's really, really rare.

So the clouds will obscure the eclipse from time to time and it just means we won't see it while that cloud is sitting there.

Or we might see it, we might not see it perfectly.

But the clouds move.

And for the most part what you mentioned about this being a good place to see it is we are right on the center line of totality.

So we see it for four minutes and nine seconds here, which gives us an opportunity to see it even if there's some clouds that come through.

- And it'll be dark regardless.

- Absolutely.

For about, what, four and a half minutes, right?

- Yes.

It gets dark.

It's still exciting.

You have that whole lead up, an hour and a half before the eclipse when the partial eclipse phase goes through.

- So it gets darker and darker and then totally dark.

And then it gets brighter.

- Yes.

It goes in reverse then.

And for us, because we have those telescope feeds all across the country, that's a big part of the stadium.

People say, "Why the stadium?"

Well we have this huge video screen in there and we can pipe images of the eclipse happening in other locations and it happens at different times from us.

So it's kind of like kinda like following the ball drop on New Year's Eve.

But this is the shadow moving across North America.

- Yes.

So in the stadium, you'll be able to look at the screen to see the eclipse as it's happening all over.

And you can look at the screen to see the eclipse.

But if you are looking at the eclipse in person, whether you're at the stadium or whether you're anywhere else, we can't do any broadcast without saying, you can only do it with special glasses.

- The the partial eclipse phase.

And so you can't look directly at the sun.

And people always ask me, "Well, don't I need to have the glasses on all day?"

And it's when you're looking at the sun, right?

'Cause you can't look directly at the Sun.

Now totality is different- - And it's not sunglasses.

These are special glasses, 'cause they're different.

- They are.

They are very dark.

They're like welder's glass.

And the old welder's glass number 14 is the shade that's similar to what we have in these eclipse glasses.

So you can't see anything through them other than the Sun or a very, very bright light.

And typically a bright light just shows up as something faint.

So you have to have those on when you're looking at the sun during the partial phase.

But for totality, you take those off, provided you're in the path of totality.

And you look directly at totality.

- Yeah.

Very interesting and very important.

I've even had people ask me, "Well, what if I'm using a camera or something else, then can I just have my sunglasses?"

No, you can't.

I mean, still the same thing, right?

- Well, yeah, you still can't look directly at it.

The camera's interesting, because the old DSLRs with a mirror in them, you absolutely do not wanna look through those.

Like your cell phone, you can look at the screen of it.

But you don't wanna leave it on the sun too long- - You're gonna hurt your phone.

Final question, just a few minutes left, but this is so exciting.

I understand that SIU also has a grant for continuing education project.

So in our last minutes, if you can talk about that.

- Yeah, so that's SolarSTEAM and it is for big astronomy events and engagement beyond the eclipse.

And so as we go forward and have lunar eclipses, have star parties, we're gonna continue this.

So those virtual events coupled with the excitement of the in-person events here.

- Yeah.

So a lot of learning and learning not just for students at the university, but learning for students of all ages, right?

- Yeah.

Yeah.

Everybody, I mean, I say everybody likes or loves astronomy, it's really universal.

So we're all looking at the same sky.

We're all looking at the same moon, the same sun.

It's uniting to people in some respect.

And it's pretty exciting.

- Yeah.

Well you, you know, I've been here a little more than two years and added an astronomy segment that airs in between programs on WSIU, and great reaction to that.

And we continue to get great reaction about this project.

Bob, thank you so much for being with us today.

Thank you, Fred.

- Good to have you here.

Bob Baer is Director of the Public Astronomy Observation Program at SIU Carbondale.

Join WSIU Monday April 8th, starting at 11 o'clock in the morning, live coverage of Eclipse Day events from Saluki Stadium.

And for all of us at WSIU, I'm Fred Martino.

Have a great week.

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