NASA Planning to Use Plastic Surgeon's Eclipse App.
PAUL: So, plastic surgeon has invented this app that has helps you time out a solar eclipse down to the second.</s>BLACKWELL: Yes. So, this app uses GPS coordinates to determine if you're in the path of the eclipse. Now, once you program your location, it counts down to the precise moment of the big event.</s>PAUL: So, Dr. Gordon Telepun is with us now. We are looking at this app, Dr. Telepun. I'll be honest with you. We are both going, we don't know what we're looking at. Help us in layman's terms understand what this app does and how it works.</s>DR. GORDON TELEPUN, SOLAR ECLIPSE CHASER & EXPERT: Sure. Good morning, everybody.</s>PAUL: Good morning.</s>TELEPUN: So, it's very simple. Mobile devices are extremely sophisticated with their ability to geo-locate and get your coordinates like for using navigation programs and things like that. So, my app takes that technology just to do your location and then in the app, itself, has the formula for calculating the contact times for the eclipse. So, once your phone knows your location, the app can calculate the exact contact times for first contact, second contact, third, and fourth contact. And then it will audibly give you announcements to tell you when those events are going to happen. So, it's actually quite simple for the first time observer. They tap one button to have their phone locate. They tap a second button to load those specific times into the timer, and then the timer will talk them through the entire eclipse. It's basically like having an astronomer next to you telling you what to look for.</s>BLACKWELL: Which is great, because we understand from Allison Chinchar in weather that this isn't just an event that happens at one moment. It happens over a period of time. And nobody wants to be there with the glasses saying, OK, what am I looking at now? So, I understand that NASA has approached you about this app. How are they planning to utilize this?</s>TELEPUN: Yes. This is an interesting story. You know, I'm very fortunate because I love following the NASA program and I live next to Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. So I have, through time, been able to meet a lot of the NASA scientists, including the solar scientists, because I went to my first eclipse in 2001 and I've had contact with them. So they knew about my app. They are going to be running two main observing sites, one in Kentucky and one in Tennessee, where they plan to play my app through the P.A. system, so that all of the basic announcements are taken care of for them and they don't have to worry about making the basic announcements about observation for the change in temperature or the change in lighting and counting down to the exact contact times. And also, my app makes announcements for when it is safe to take your solar glasses off just after second contact, and a reminder to put them back on just before third contact. And that is very important. So, it just takes a little pressure off of the folks running those two observing sites to have that be automated.</s>PAUL: OK. We only have about 30 seconds left. But tell us about the solar bands, what are they? Why are they --</s>TELEPUN: Oh, shadow bands. Well, shadow bands happen just in the final 60 seconds before totality begins and the final 60 seconds right -- or right after totality ends. And you look on the ground, and you look for these very faint low contrast shadows that get created by that slit of light coming through the atmosphere. It's very exciting to see them. Not everybody will see them. But the app reminds them to look to the ground at 60 seconds before second contact, to look for these very faint shadows.</s>PAUL: My kids are going to love this.</s>BLACKWELL: Yes.</s>PAUL: My little scientific girls are going to love this. Dr. Telepun, thank you so much. We appreciate you walking through it.</s>TELEPUN: Well, thank you. This is an exciting time for the country.</s>PAUL: All righty. Take good care. Listen, you know, it's been since World War Two. Well, now, the USS Indianapolis has been found in 18,000 feet of water. Next, the chilling story behind the shipwreck.</s>BLACKWELL: And we look back at the life of pioneering comedian and civil rights activist Dick Gregory, who died Saturday at the age of 84.