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clarion.brevard.edu
Volume 83, Issue 2 Web Edition SERVING BREVARD COLLEGE SINCE 1935
Look for the tribute
for Pat Shores on
pages
August 30, 2017
NASA arrives in WNC
for Solar Eclipse
By Calum McAndrew
Managing Editor
Thousands of people poured in to the city of
Brevard on Monday, Aug. 21, to see the spectacle
of a totally eclipsed sun passing over the town.
During the event, NASA, and Brevard Col
lege’s Associate Professor of Physics Michael
Castelaz took part in once in a lifetime research
at the Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute in
Pisgah Forest (PARI).
“The PARI event had several components,”
Castelaz said. “One part was public, where they
were set aside a footprint to sit in and watch the
eclipse. The other part was with researchers.”
Approximately 1300 people viewed the eclipse
at the grounds of PARI, with a small percentage
of that number conducting research. Professor
Castelaz was among this group of researchers.
“There were different NASA groups, doing
different sets of atmospheric measurements.
The research I was involved in was in Radio
Astronomy,” Castelaz said. “There are two big
dishes on the (PARI) campus, and we used both
of those to view the total solar eclipse. This is
the first time, that we are aware of, that a radio
observatory has been in the path of totality. For
at least another 100 years or so, it’s not going
to happen again.”
“We decided to do it (make radio observa
tions), and what we were looking at was the
corona of the sun, which is very hot, and a lot
of it is just plasma, electrons and protons. A lot
of people said however, that there could be hy
drogen atoms too, but nobody has ever had the
ability to look for it. So that’s what we decided
to do,” Castelaz explained.
“We set up the two dishes to look up at the sun
during totality to look for hydrogen. The bigger
dish see’s the entire full moon, observing total
ity, while the smaller dish see’s an area bigger
than that, the corona,” Castelaz said. “By com
paring the two images, we can look for neutral
hydrogen gas. This has never been done before.”
On Wednesday, Aug. 23, Castelaz went to
PARI to sit with the crew that made the obser
vations. “The data is pretty complicated. It’s
going to take us sometime, maybe weeks, maybe
more, to work to a point where we can even say
anything. Research just takes time.”
Castelaz plans to present his findings from the
total eclipse at the North Carolina Astronomers
meeting in late September, though the data is
still complicated. “We looked at the data, and
just kind of shook our heads,” Castelaz said
with a laugh.
“It was really quite an effort by the crew up in
PARI,” Castelaz said. “I was the research direc
tor in PARI, starting in 2001, and the President
of PARI, Don Cline, pulled me aside and told
me to remember August, 2017, because there
was going to be a total solar eclipse over PARI.
This was in 2001. He was already thinking
about this eclipse. I remember thinking, ‘who
thinks that?”’
PARI however has not stopped looking to
wards the future according to Castelaz, who
said, “When I was there on Wednesday morning,
they were already talking about 2024, when we
will have a partial eclipse here. It will be about
85 - 90 percent.”
Despite the significance that the results at
PARI may yield, Castelaz was far more inter
ested in talking about another important part of
the day. This was the social side that arrived as
part of the eclipse. “I thought, when I walked
from this building (MS) to the Porter Center. The
amount of people that were out there picnicking
and just having fun, I’m so glad that astronomy
could do something like that.”
As a professor at Brevard College, Professor
Castelaz teaches several courses in the Physics
department. For an opportunity to take a course
with him, and to travel to the Pisgah Astronomi
cal Research Institute, where the experiments of
last week were conducted, the course PHY 102
is offered to all students.
Above: a view of PARI located in Pisgah Forest.
Below: image of the solar eclipse.