Viewing total lunar eclipse in Southern California ? Here is why that will be difficult for some
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA — Here’s the good news: You won’t need anything fancy to view the total solar eclipse over Southern California on Monday, July 21, or at least not until July 26.
The only other person who can see the eclipse is the Sun. It will be visible from about 11 a.m. PDT to 5 p.m. PDT, according to the National Weather Service. The average eclipse lasts only about two to three hours, so the solar eclipse will get underway at 10:39 a.m. Monday.
Just remember: The eclipse will be total until at least 2:05 p.m. PDT. From then until 12:04 p.m. PDT, the Moon will cover about 1.8 percent of the Sun’s surface.
Don’t be surprised if a few people want to see the eclipse in telescopes, but they’ll have to get their own hardware. People will have to bring themselves to the event, said Dan Kottler, the chief scientific consultant for Space.com.
It’s hard to predict how the eclipse will be viewed. The biggest effect will be on telescopes that point the Sun at them to take pictures, Kottler said.
The eclipse will happen over the state on a mountain called Mount Wilson in western Los Angeles County. The mountain is an easy place to capture an eclipse and has a variety of telescopes to use, Kottler said.
There are three observatories and six telescopes on Mount Wilson that are available to view the eclipse, according to the NASA-NOAA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory. There are also eight telescopes set up on the nearby Palomar Observatory campus that will also observe the eclipse.
The total eclipse is the first in a three-year celebration leading up to the total solar eclipse of August 21, 2024.
To give you a feel for what will be happening
