Breakfast in Yiwu
Posted by lowellr | Filed under Total Solar Eclipse: Live from China
It was beautiful morning breakfast in Yiwu (actually we’re north of Yiwu). After a 16-hour bus ride from Urumqi we arrived at the eclipse tent village, had a terrible night’s sleep, then got to eat in the press media tent for what I would describe as a very savory breakfast.
Getting used to our new accommodations will take some time, but there have been so many pleasant surprises ( having Internet access is the biggest one). But whatever comes our way, it’s always nice to be with friends.
16 hours on the bus
Posted by lowellr | Filed under Total Solar Eclipse: Live from China
Yesterday’s bus ride was 16 hours. Most of the team got on the bus only 6 hours after a 24-hour plane flight. We had an early departure to catch up with XJTV, who we were traveling along in a modern media caravan. XJTV (state-run) trucks have red and blue light bars on their vehicles and are not bound by speed limits, but we also had police escorts along the way, which made the line of cars look even cooler. Needless to say it still took 16 hours. Xinjiang is an enormous piece of real estate, 1/6th of the total size of China. It spans 1.6 million sq. km.
Probably the hardest part of the trip for me was my inability to control myself from taking thousands of photographs from the bus window (not ideal) as the Silk Route unfolded in front of me, shielded by a thin layer of automotive glass. The trip across the desert is incredible. Small towns, fruit stands, giant thermometers, domesticated camels. Our trip to Yiwu took us across deserts, mountains, and grasslands. It was amazing, except we barely got to get out of the bus. I find this ironic, because today without my protective metal and glass container I am covered with dust and sweat and all I want to do is get back in the bus, which, tired of my presence, is off running an errand.
Tags: silk route, travel
The Center of Asia
Posted by robs | Filed under Total Solar Eclipse: Live from China
In looking over the map of Xinjiang I saw an intriguing notation about 40 km south west of Urumqi listed as the Geographic Center of Asia. It turns out that Chinese scientists has calculated that this spot was the exact center of Asia. A tourist attraction if there ever was one. Wow this had to be great. Expecting crowds, we trundled off to see it.
What we found was this isolated monument partially built on the edge of a nondescript plain. We were joined by two other tourists that day (where are the crowds?). You really had to use your imagination to realize what an amazing spot this was. Situated half way between Istanbul on the west and Tokyo to the east and Siberia to the north and the tip of India and Malaysia to the south this spot was truly an amazing cultural marker.
Now off to the spot 100 km north of here that is the farthest you can get form the ocean in the world.
clouds are not your friends
Posted by lowellr | Filed under Total Solar Eclipse: Live from China
There’s been a lot of talk about the weather lately, and it’s not because we’re sitting on the front porch sipping lemonade - it’s because when you chase eclipses, clouds are not your friends. Most modern eclipse expeditions are planned at least a year in advance, and it really comes down to 3 things: location, location, location.
An eclipse’s path of totality is usually around 10,000 miles long but only 100 miles wide. Before you choose your spot, you should know that not all points on the path are equal. Why not? Well, nobody ever said that celestial mechanics had to be fair. Think of it this way. Imagine you’re at rock concert, except that the stage is moving and you’re moving and the lights are moving…
What all eclipse chasers are trying to do is be under the moon’s shadow for as long as possible (to maximize totality), but we also want to be in the front row. So at a rock concert, I could get stuck behind a speaker or a Nordic volleyball team, but at a solar eclipse, who’s going to block my way? Here’s a hint: it rhymes with crowd.
Now, I’m not saying clouds are evil; who doesn’t like white, fluffy clouds? There’s one that looks like Snoopy…oh, that one looks like a cute little bear! Unfortunately, Snoopy and that cute little bear don’t want you to see the eclipse that you traveled around the world to see. So, when planning the best place to lay out your blanket on the path of totality, you’re looking for the longest viewing time but you’re also wondering where’s your best chance for clear skies.
That why when it rained at dinner the other night we were pretty quiet. Snoopy, why do you torment us?
Tags: prediction, skies, weather
Gear Check
Posted by robynh | Filed under Total Solar Eclipse: Live from China
We went over to XJTV to take a look at the gear. We brought 19 cases weighing 1163 pounds: telescopes, hi-brite monitors, tape decks, NTSC-to-PAL converters. Our lead video engineer, Larry Kenworthy, opened each case to make sure nothing got damaged in transit. It all looked good (whew!)
Next we went upstairs for another long meeting. Wendy Hsu (XJTV new anchor) agreed to do one short bit with us…in exchange she will be interviewing all the crew members on Tuesday morning to tape, and Rob & Paul live, twenty minutes after they are off-air with us.
We got to take a look at their one-minute ‘teaser’ (ad). I laughed watching clips from our broadcast of the 2006 eclipse mixed in with their commentary. We requested a copy to post on our Web site. You’ll have to check back for it….
Tags: pre-production, xjtv
It Begins for Real
Posted by robynh | Filed under Total Solar Eclipse: Live from China
It’s 2:00 am and I’m sitting in the lobby of the hotel waiting for the last seven members of our crew to arrive. A group of young ladies is just leaving the karaoke club and the hotel guard is waving his metal-detecting wand like a baton.
It’s a 26-hour journey from San Francisco to Urumqi. I know how hard it is to arrive in a foreign place in the middle of the night, so I figure seeing a familiar face will be reassuring (and I need to tell them that they have to be on the bus at 8 am instead of 10 as we had planned). I had hoped they could get a little sleep and a long shower before the 10 hour bus ride to Yiwu, but XJTV said we could join their caravan: it’s too good an offer to refuse. We will be following two satellite uplink trucks and a production van….and led by our own police escort! The local police have instituted a new, slow speed limit, but with our escort, we’ll be allowed to speed along. There will be at least two checkpoints along the way where our bus will be boarded and our baggage searched. I’m hoping that as part of the caravan we may get waved through.
Sleeping on the bus is important, as XJTV wants to interview everyone on the crew at 10 am tomorrow (Wednesday), and then we will begin setting up our telescopes.
Physics Lesson on a Coke Can
Posted by robs | Filed under Total Solar Eclipse: Live from China
Not surprisingly you can get a Coke (but not Diet) even out here in Urumqi. But was surprising to me at first was the ready made physics lesson right on the side of the can. I ordered a Coke at the cool, jazz oasis of Ensun Coffee next to a gaming room with 200 Chinese kids individually deep into World of War. Instead of talking about calories the label listed 180 kj or kilo joules. In fact the food labels here are all in SI units (meters, kilograms etc) the system that scientists (and almost everybody in the world uses except the US). It was a great reminder that calories is actually a measure of energy with a precise meaning in scientific terms. 1 calorie = 4.18400 joules. (The sun provides 1,000,000,000 times more energy to the earth in the hour it takes to drink the Coke.)
Tags: energy, everyday science, SI units
Time to Shop
Posted by robynh | Filed under Total Solar Eclipse: Live from China
In between tech meetings, script meetings, and emailing about fiber TOC numbers; I need to think about the crew. The 12 of us will be camping out for four days at the edge of the Gobi desert….and when I say camping, I mean literally living in tents. I have arranged for three meals a day to be delivered to us, but will they have plates? Forks? The people here aren’t big coffee drinkers, but most of my crew need a serious dose of caffeine in the morning: I brought coffee, but how to make it? Toilet paper is also an extremely rare commodity. So what does a producer do? Go shopping! The list looked like this:
- Electric Kettle (need hot water for the coffee)
- Coffee pot
- 12 mugs, plates, forks/chopsticks
- Cutting Board & knife (for cutting up watermelon and Hamigua)
- Large Clock (so our ‘talent’ doesn’t run to over their time cues)
- Large washtub (we need to wash the talent’s hair on webcast day!)
- Soap, shampoo, toilet paper
- Face powder (it could be 100 degrees, don’t want sweaty faces on camera)
- Poster Board (to write notes to talent during show & to show changing shadows)
I figured I’d run in to the local Target-type store, and be back in a half hour for lunch. It turns out that folks here take their shopping very seriously. After I picked out my $6 wall-clock the sales girl went to the electronics department for batteries. She wanted to prove to me that it was is good working order. Another salesperson painstakingly pointed out the pros and cons of a dozen kettles before letting me decide which I wanted (”this one will only keep the water hot for an hour, but is made out of stainless steel, this one is plastic but will keep the water warm for 3 hours, this one has a one-year manufacturer’s guarantee.”) It took me three hours to get what I needed!
I am hoping we can squeeze in a few hours at the bazaar soon. I was there three months ago on a pre-production trip, and it is an entirely different shopping experience….
Ürümqi, Night and Day
Posted by lowellr | Filed under Total Solar Eclipse: Live from China
Tags: time lapse, urumqi
Watch the Sunrise and Moonrise
Posted by pauld | Filed under Total Solar Eclipse: Live from China
On July 21, 2008 the full moon rose at sunset. The next morning the sun rose over one hundred lunar diameters away. The full moon rises near where the sun rose 6 months ago, so in the summer when the sun rises at its furthest north along the horizon, the full moon rises at its furthest south. Observers keeping track of the position of the rising sun and moon note that the positions of the moonrise and sunrise have been racing toward each other and that on August 1, 2008 the sun and moon will rise at nearly the same position.
On August 1, 2008 the moon will be new and will rise eclipsing the sun near Alut, Northwest Territories Canada. The moon will set eclipsing the sun near Xian China.
In the late afternoon of August 1, I will be with the Exploratorium eclipse team watching the moon totally eclipse the sun at 4:08 PM China time (11:08 PM Universal time) The moon will eclipse the sun for 2 minutes. We will send live images of the eclipse out to the world.
Ancient peoples marked the positions of the rising and setting sun and moon, the marked positions are preserved in monuments such as Stonehenge and other woodhenges. I suspect that the observers from long ago knew more about the rising and setting positions than most modern day people.
If you live near the path of this eclipse do not miss a chance to see the sun rendezvous with the moon.
If you cannot see the eclipse live, watch the video on the Exploratorium website or watch from the Exploratorium sim in Second Life.
No matter where you are don’t miss a chance to watch sunrise, sunset, moonrise and moonset.
