OMSI Total Solar Eclipse Viewing in Salem, Oregon - August 21, 2017
Join OMSI at the Salem Fairgrounds on Monday, August 21, 2017, 6AM-12PM for a very special Solar Eclipse Viewing Party! To celebrate this unique experience we will host a safe, interactive event featuring science lectures, astronomy related community groups, entertainment and more.
Get there early! Doors open at 6AM. The main event will begin around 9AM.
Parking and camping will be available through the Salem Fairgrounds. Check back here for more information.
Tickets will go on sale August 25, 2016.
See the Event webpage above for pricing details. Tickets include a seat in the LB Day Amphitheater and a solar eclipse viewer.
Please note: you must use a solar eclipse viewer to watch this extraordinary event.
For more information 503.797.4529 or events@omsi.edu.
On August 21, 2017, the total solar eclipse is when the moon moves right in front of the sun, covering it completely for a very short time. It darkens the whole sky, lets you look right at the sun (only when it's completely covered, though - you must use special solar viewing glasses whenever the sun isn't completely eclipsed), and shows you the beautiful corona that surrounds the sun. Stars come out, the horizon glows with a 360-degree sunset, the temperature drops, and day turns into night. Proper advance planning and promotion will help communities in the eclipse path be prepared for the biggest astronomical event of the century.
On the beach in Oregon, just north of Newport, the shadow first touches land at about 10:15 in the morning, and will experience a full minute and fifty seconds of totality. The actual centerline of the eclipse path hits solid ground a full six seconds later, and plunges Lincoln Beach and Depoe Bay into darkness for 1m58s!
It takes only about two minutes for the shadow to race eastward toward its first date with a large population of folks who will be breathlessly awaiting its arrival. Dallas, Albany, Corvallis, Lebanon, Philomath, McMinnville, Woodburn, and yes, Salem itself, experience various lengths of totality (based on their varying distances from the centerline); on the steps of the State Capitol in Salem (the first of five state capitals the shadow will visit), lucky viewers will be treated to 1m54.5s of shadow at just after 10:17am.
The eclipse travels through the forests of central Oregon, hitting the mountains at Madras and Warm Springs at about 10:19. Mitchell and Prairie City are next, and the shadow leaves Oregon just north of Ontario. (Actually, Ontario gets 1m23s of totality at 11:25am MDT, but folks there would be better served to head north to the rest area north of Huntington on I-84, or into Idaho on US 95 between Midvale and Weiser, for better than 30 seconds more totality! Majority of the Pacific Northwest NOT in the path of totality, will witness a partial eclipse ranging from 99% to 88%.