Monday, March 7
Here we go! We have run our first test receiving feed from Woleai. Things went very well—we have a few bugs to work out, but mostly things were great! We’ll run one more test today, then we’re on for tomorrow’s big event!
Rob R. and Nicole in the webcast studio, preparing for tomorrow's event. (photo by Exploratorium)
Video coming in from Woleai during yesterday's test. One is the feed from the telescope. (Look at that huge prominence jetting up from the sun!) The other images are so-called “b-roll,” supporting images that will help tell the story of the eclipse and Woleai. (photo by Exploratorium)
Our Public Programs team has been organizing activities and presentations for our onsite webcast viewing party. There are graphics to be made and AV systems to set up, including seven TV monitors that will be showing the live eclipse footage throughout the museum.
Our web team is preparing for heavy traffic as eclipse viewers from across the world log onto our site, drawn by the buzz generated by our publicity and social media mavens.
The complicated transmission process that brings the eclipse live to the world from Micronesia has been months in the planning. The process will be orchestrated as it unfolds by our streaming producer and techs here at the Exploratorium, in contact with the team on Woleai.
Ray, an Exploratorium graphic designer, wonders how to make sense of a chicken-scratch drawing of the transmission process. He managed, producing this visual description of how we do it. (photo by Exploratorium)
