Since Alan was a great lover of the natural world’s wonders, and also of beautiful pictures, I thought I’d start my “introductory” post here on Sullivan’s Travlers with this extraordinary photograph, taken on Sunday from Patagonia:
It was, alas, not taken by me. My life’s first opportunity to see a total solar eclipse is still seven years off, when the Moon’s shadow will sweep from the Oregon coast clean across the continental United States to South Carolina, with a pit stop in the Grand Teton National Park — a day’s drive northwest of my home city of Denver. I fully intend to be there, with my wife and our 9-year-old and 8-year-old daughters (presently 2 and 1), and whatever other friends and family members we can drag with us. I am looking forward to it more intensely and specifically than just about anything else that’s so far off in the future.
Still, I’m not sure my eclipse experience can possibly match what amateur astronomer Daniel Fischer of Germany — who took the above photo — saw on Sunday from a roadside scenic overlook on the frozen plains of southern Argentina, looking west toward the distant Andes Mountains just minutes before sunset. Here’s how Fischer described it to SpaceWeather.com:
The sharp delineation of the Moon’s shadow in the sky stunned everyone … [T]he shadow came, racing towards us with supersonic speed, almost grazing the Earth’s surface and about to lift off into space again after having swept through a vast stretch of the Pacific Ocean in the hours past. In a short time we witnessed every phase of the eclipse in the unusually clear Patagonian sky. No one present will ever forget it.
The cone-shaped dark region surrounding the eclipsed sun, with a more normal-looking sunset horizon on either side, is the moon’s central shadow — the umbra — distinctly visible to the human eye because of the eclipse’s low angle (i.e., the fact that it was almost sunset). Here’s a video of the scene, taken by another viewer in Patagonia:
Absolutely stunning. You can view more photos in my blog post at my personal blog, The Living Room Times, and even more on Fischer’s site. (Photo republished with permission.)
Anyway, if this is supposed to be an “introductory” post, I suppose at some point, I should actually introduce myself. I’m Brendan Loy, an attorney in Denver and a long-time blog acquaintance of Alan’s; we started reading each other’s stuff in 2004, and linked to each other many times over the years.
I used to go by the moniker “Irish Trojan” — because I got my undergrad degree from USC, home of the Trojans, and my law degree from Notre Dame, home of the Fighting Irish, football archrivals of the Trojans — and it was in the days of the old Irish Trojan’s Blog that my coverage of Hurricane Katrina earned me my 15 minutes of fame, from the pages of the New York Times to a live spot on MSNBC to a Spike Lee joint. Of course, my coverage was much assisted by the work of other weatherbloggers, who I linked and credited constantly, chief among them a meteorologist named Jeff Masters and a non-meteorologist, a lay weather buff like me, named Alan Sullivan. I was gratified to be able to direct some of my fall 2005 traffic surge Alan’s way, and have been delighted in recent weeks to read the accounts of several “rare readers” who discovered Alan through me in 2005, and stuck around ever since.
In 2008, suffering blog fatigue and struggling with the transition from being a prolific (or “hyperactive,” as Alan put it in his very first post referencing me) law-school blogger to being a less frequent blogger with a kid and full-time job, I briefly shut down my blog, promptly started it up again under a new name (Ash Blog Durbatulûk), and then, after the November elections, shut it down again, this time for more than 7 months. During that period, I became a prolific tweeter — hey, gotta scratch the itch somehow. Then in June of last year, I launched my current blog, The Living Room Times, which was the name of the unofficial school newspaper that I published in middle school and high school. I now blog occasionally (maybe two or three times a day) and tweet frequently, with most of those tweets cross-posting to the LRT homepage, to keep it fresh.
Anyhow… as I explained in my memorial post, I never met Alan in real life, though I felt as if I “knew” him through his extraordinary blog. Politically, ideologically and spiritually, we could hardly have been more different. (Me: center-left Obama supporter, Palin-hater, secular agnostic. Him: well, you know.) Yet we also had much in common, including a fascination with weather and other natural disasters and phenomena; a love of natural and aesthetic beauty in all forms; a deep appreciation for the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien; and, if I may say so, a fair bit of talent at writing, though mine is strictly confined to prose (and is probably exceeded by Alan even there), whereas he was also a great poet — something I have no skill at, or knowledge of, whatsoever. In any event, in my contributions to this new group blog, I hope I’ll be able to fill some of the niches that Alan and I shared, and I greatly look forward to seeing what the other “rare readers” will have to contribute. And if I occasionally have a kind word or two to say about President Obama, I hope Alan will forgive me. 
I’ll conclude with one more “natural world” photo — quite a bit more earthly — and then a stargazing alert. First, the photo: I took this from my office building last night, looking north from downtown Denver. It’s actually a screenshot of a frame from a 720p HD movie taken with my iPhone 4. The annoying vertical lines are reflections of window shades, alas. Anyway:
Nothing exceptional, certainly not a direct view of the Moon’s shadow, but hey, it’s not every day I get a halfway decent shot of cloud-to-ground lightning. And I couldn’t introduce myself on Alan’s blog without posting something having to do with weather!
Finally, the celestial alert I mentioned: look west tonight after sunset. The crescent Moon will form a isosceles triangle with Saturn and Mars, as nearby Venus looks on.
Fitting and lovely beginning. Thanks, Brendan.
I’m so glad to see everyone here. Anyone have any idea why it’s been so lacking in showers in South Florida for the past month? It’s supposed to be the rainy season and I’ve had to water a few times because of lack of rain. It seems there are showers in various places here, but few pass directly over us.
Love these posts. Images of electrical charges are amazing. Lucky strike for you, Brendan! This kind of weather’s so different to what I know. Yesterday I was near a coastal city and looked up to see the sun turn into a fluorescent orangey-pink ball bebore it began to set, though the sky was still blue. The odd thing was that it was positioned right above a massive electricity pylon, so looked just as though someone had turned a globe on at the top of the pylon. The first thing I thought of was how Alan wd likely find that an interesting photo angle.
So last night about 9:30 something tells me, “Go out and take a look at that moon-planet configuration” (this is in semi-rural NC).
So I go out, and there it was, but coming right out of it at that moment, on a course from west to east (roughly) was the international space station. Amazing! It stayed in sight for 2-3 minutes.
It’s a good thing I’d seen it before, lest the local papers read “Local resident claims UFO sighting.”
I have seen a total eclipse of the sun, I think in 1979, when my then-girlfriend Gloria and I zoomed up the coast from Sacramento to Oregon. This was in February, and the weather was inclement, as is its wont that time of year. We stayed in a campground along the Columbia River. It was completely overcast that Monday morning, but I thought I’d spotted a patch of blue towards the west. After getting a jump start for my car, we sped west, with Gloria keeping a watch of the sun slowly being ‘eaten’ by the moon. When it neared totality, the clouds parted, and we stopped. I had rigged my camera with welder’s glass to prevent damage to my eyes, and the film, and got some good shots of the eclipse.
Then, totality. It was beautiful, especially the ruby-red color of a solar flare that occurred right at the height of the eclipse. The most beautiful red color I’ve ever seen. Then, it was over. A few minutes later, the clouds gathered again and the sun disappeared.
I knew at that moment, I did occasionally have wonderful luck.
I’ve always wanted to see another. But at least I’ve seen one. It is indeed spectacular. And beautiful beyond description.
Love the pics, Brendan, and thanks for the introduction and all the work you’re doing here
I almost hate myself for this stroke of luck: in March of ’96 my husband and I and some friends took a cruise. On the last night, as we were heading northeast back to Miami our friends came by at midnight, very excited, insisting that we go on deck and look at the sky.
There were some clouds, so at first I couldn’t see what my friends were talking about. But as my night vision grew, the clouds parted and I got to see Comet Hyakutake make its surprise brightening. It was almost parallel with the Big Dipper and almost the same size. The tail was a misty eerie green, and the eye glittered like an emerald.
I still hate that I didn’t have a decent camera (just a dumb full-daylight instamatic kind which wouldn’t work indoors, much less on the night sky). But at least I got to see it! And we all ran down to the midnight buffet (still in our pajamas!) to try and persuade other cruisers and officers to go up on deck to see.