Quebec app helps amateur astronomers watch the eclipse
Amateur astronomers or one-time eclipse enthusiasts can now use a new bilingual app to ensure they get the best experience on April 8.
The app My Eclipse is a 21st-century tool for this age-old phenomenon, created by the Quebec Federation of Amateur Astronomers (FAAQ).
According to Alain Préfontaine, a project manager with the FAAQ, the app has three main objectives: informational, historical and scientific.
The goal, says Préfontaine, is to give people a wealth of information about eclipses and prepare them with the best ways to observe the changing sky.
The app provides details such as letting users know if they are standing in the line of complete totality -- that is, when they can take their glasses off to look at the eclipse and when they should put them back on.
"People realize that if you go to totality, especially a long period of totality, you're going to enjoy the eclipse tremendously," said Préfontaine. "There's a huge difference between a 99 per cent covered sun and totality."
He calls the marvel almost "esoteric."
"Everything changes, darkness comes; human nature has been guided by the sun coming up in the morning, going down at night for thousands of years," Préfontaine points out. "All of a sudden, at 3:30 p.m., the sun's going to disappear...People are marked by that."
The federation worked with programmers from Université de Montréal for over a year to create the app and tested it out for the first time last October during a partial eclipse.
The app isn't just for the total eclipse on April 8; Préfontaine says it is up to date until 2032.
"We won't have any total eclipses in Quebec, but they happen somewhere on the globe every year, year-and-a-half," said Préfontaine. "Many of them are going to be visible as partial eclipses from here, so you can use it for those. Or if you get on a plane and go to Europe or Africa or wherever, you can bring the app with you and it's going to give you the same quality information."
That means users can use the app no matter where they are in the world.
"Because of geo-localization, it's going to know where you are, and it's going to give you real-time messages as to what's happening around you," he said.
The last total eclipse viewable from Montreal was in 1932; the next isn't expected until 2106.
To download the My Eclipse app, click here for iOS and here for Android.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Liberal MP says she's leaving politics over disrespectful dialogue, threats, misogyny
Liberal MP Pam Damoff says she won't run again in the next federal election, saying she has experienced misogyny, disrespectful dialogue in politics and threats to her life.
Concerns about Plexiglass prompt inspections at some Loblaws locations in Ottawa
Inspections are underway at more than one Loblaws location in Ottawa after complaints were filed about tall Plexiglass barriers.
Federal employees will be required to spend 3 days a week in the office
Starting in September, public servants in the core public administration will be required to work in the office a minimum of three days a week. The Treasury Board Secretariat says executives will need to be in the office four days per week.
OPP officer said 'someone's going to get hurt' before wrong-way Hwy. 401 crash
As multiple Durham police cruisers were chasing a robbery suspect on the wrong side of Highway 401 Monday night, an Ontario Provincial Police officer shared his concerns, telling a dispatcher, "Someone's going to get hurt."
Ont. woman who faked pregnancy to defraud doulas arrested again on similar charges
Victims of a Brantford, Ont., woman who was sentenced to house arrest earlier this year for defrauding and deceiving doulas say they’re not surprised she’s been apprehended again on similar charges.
Five human skeletons, missing hands and feet, found outside house of Nazi leader Hermann Göring
Archeologists have unearthed the skeletons of five people, missing their hands and feet, at a former Nazi military base in Poland.
Poilievre returns to House unrepentant for calling Trudeau 'wacko,' Speaker not resigning
An unrepentant Pierre Poilievre returned to the House of Commons on Wednesday to pepper the prime minister about his drug decriminalization policies after being booted the day prior for refusing to take back calling Justin Trudeau 'wacko' over his approach to the issue.
Construction begins on LGBTQ2S+ national monument in Ottawa
Shovels have hit the ground for constuction on Canada's LGBTQ2S+ national monument in Ottawa.
B.C. man awarded $5,000 in damages in first-of-it-kind intimate image case
In a first-of-its-kind case, a B.C. tribunal has ruled on a dispute involving the non-consensual sharing of intimate images, awarding damages and issuing orders that the photos be destroyed and taken offline.