Tag Archives: Umbraphile

Solar eclipse globe

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Just received my geektastic eclipse globe! It illustrates the path of every solar eclipse during the twentyfirst century—from 2001 to 2100—including 68 TSEs and seven annulars.

“This globe is ideal because the distortions inherent in any flat map of Earth are eliminated,” states the text at Great American Eclipse, where you can order one. “Moreover, a globe accurately represents the true areal extent of totality’s path across Earth’s surface. The base map gives the physiographic view of Earth. Color tints distinguish arid regions from humid areas; lighter tints and shading depict mountainous areas. The transparent yellow paths crossing the oceans and continents mark the areas within which a total solar eclipse can be observed. Thin red lines in the centers of these paths denote where the longest local duration of totality can be enjoyed. A small red-rimmed yellow circle near the midpoint of each eclipse path shows the point of greatest eclipse.”

Useful! Pretty! Twelve inches. Comes with a clear plastic base.

I’m looking at you, 2024. Mazatlán!

Radio New Zealand interview with eclipse chaser RG Coleman

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Follow this link to hear my very excited and hopeful (and in retrospect, sad) RNZ interview with First Up host Lydia Batham, recorded at sea on the M/S Paul Gauguin after leaving Pitcairn Island.

Hello Darkness, MOF

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Prepping again for the next TSE! The welders glasses I’ve used for the partial phases since The Big One (Baja, 1991) are scratched, worn, and a little broken, but they’ll block blinding Sol’s rays one more time with a little duct tape patch on the seam. I hope.

I’m currently overpacking (example: three bathing suits) for the South Pacific “Cruise to Totality”, a TravelQuest tour aboard the MS Paul Gauguin that will sail from Tahiti on June 27. Her passengers will witness 3 minutes and 16 seconds of totality at sea on July 2, 2019, somewhere between Pitcairn Island and Rangiroa. Clear skies are expected, and I’ll have my eighth total solar eclipse in the can.

I’m almost more excited about the add-on excursion to Easter Island (Rapa Nui), a destination I’ve always wanted to see for myself. Something about those massive Moai heads are calling—so much so that I made an effort during a road trip to the Midwest this month to find and take a selfie with the “Moai Dude” sculpture. He stands in a suburban playground in Altoona, Iowa. Can’t wait to meet a real one…next week!

Eclipse chat

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I had fun sharing my eclipse experiences with a couple of good interviewers.

I was on the “Countdown to the 2017 Eclipse” show on Boss Radio 100.7 broadcast from the Oregon Coast—where residents will be the first people to stand in the shadow of the Great American Eclipse on August 21. Here’s a recording of that interview. (You can make a drinking game out of the number of times I say “spectacle”.)

Host of the weekly talk show, Kay Wyatt, is an astronomer who has her very own observatory north of Lincoln City in the coastal mountains. I was honored to be part of the 17-episode program that included interviews with several notable astronomy stars (pun intended)—among them, Fred Espenak (“Mr. Eclipse”) who was recently honored as the astrophotographer whose image was used to make the USPS Total Eclipse stamp.

I also spoke with bubbly Janine Pettit, host of the Girl Camper podcast —as Airstream trailering and eclipse chasing will soon overlap at the Oregon Blackout Rally in August—and with the Technology Reporter for the Bend Bulletin. “Eclipse Chaser Plans Life Around Solar Events” is actually a pretty accurate headline.

Update: I recently enjoyed a conversation with Brian Resnick, a reporter for Vox who interviewed several chasers for this fun and informative article.

 

 

Souvenir stamps

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Eclipse chasers who also collect stamps. If that isn’t a double nerd alert, what is?

Where my philatellas at, yo? Stamps and first day covers from each eclipse make a fabulous (and flat, lightweight) souvenir. To celebrate a special TSE, local governments often issue a commemorative stamp and/or a first day cover—an envelope affixed with said stamp, postmarked on the first day of its issue, usually imprinted with some kind of illustration.

Today the USPS released their Total Eclipse of the Sun Forever stamp, a first-of-its-kind stamp that transforms the eclipsed sun into an image of the Moon using thermochromic ink.

Make your own philatelic souvenir for the Great American Eclipse: address an envelope to yourself, place a Total Eclipse of the Sun Forever stamp in the usual corner, take it to the post office on the morning of August 21, 2017, and ask a clerk to date stamp the envelope and drop it in their outgoing mail. (Add artwork on the lefthand side for a personal touch; kid’s drawings of their interpretation of the eclipse would be adorable.) Be sure to physically perform this transaction with a postal clerk; you might miss the postmark by a day if you drop it in a mailbox.

Above: Stamps and cover from Bolivia, 1994. Below: Another from Bolivia; Mexico 1991; Aruba 1998; Madagascar stamps and handmade card 2001; souvenirs from Papua New Guinea 2012 (Orion ship stationery and kina bills—folding money is fun to collect, too).

 

Eclipse chaser log

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Umbraphiles, have you logged your eclipses at the Eclipse Chasers website? All the cool kids are doing it.

Eclipse chaser “sounds better than eclipse stalker, paparazzi, or voyeur which are more accurate terms,” states site author Bill Kramer, a veteran of ten TSEs. “If you stay in one place all your life, the chances of seeing a total solar eclipse are quite slim. As a consequence, in order to see one or more total eclipses of the sun one must travel to see them. And that is how you become an Eclipse Chaser.”

Kramer has painstakingly assembled a nice little hub for chasers to keep track of their travels, surveil each other, and find out who else was there on the day of totality.

The Eclipse Chaser site allows you to find and claim any total, annular and/or partial eclipse, dating from 1806. (So, if you’re 211 years old, you might need to get a teenager to help you with the log in.) Add everything you can remember about your eclipse experiences, hit “save”, and your name, shadow time, chase success and other details will be posted automatically to the user summary—314 names, and counting!

Your log will include a delicious quantity of too much information you never knew you wanted to know.

Mine looks like this:

Eclipse count: 7, of which 6 were total and 1 were annular types. The remaining were partials.

Number of Saros Series seen is 6

Time in shadow of the moon: 17h 32m 31.9s. (all partial plus total plus annular)

Total Eclipse time: 21m 9.0s (1,269.0 seconds)

Annular Eclipse time: 6m 50.8s (410.8 seconds)

Central shadow time (A+T): 27m 59.8s

The site is fantastic resource for past eclipse data and includes fun auxiliary information about safety and equipment, collectibles, a gallery of images, how to chase an eclipse (there are five steps! who knew), and even boring transits.

Just select “join log” and you’re on your way. Don’t rush your entries—it make take a few tries to drop a pin on exactly where you were standing in the shadow—and don’t forget, like I did until later, to use the drop down menu to select the exact weather conditions (fun detail, Bill!). No worries, though—you can go back and edit your entry at any time.

The Great American Eclipse, August 2017

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If you’re a North American who isn’t living under a rock you know about #TSE2017—and I could ride my bike there.

Ha ha! JK. I’m not riding my bike 21 miles. But the edge of totality falls across Redmond, Oregon on August 21, 2017 at the northernmost edge of Roberts Field airport, just up the highway from my home in Bend.

Coincidence? I think not. Even the weak Kallawalla mystic would say it’s predictable that I live in the path of totality, a quarter of a century from experiencing my first total solar eclipse.

People ‘round these parts say they remember the Northwest eclipse of 1979—no they don’t. It was clouded out. (Disagree? Let’s see your corona shot. Yeah, I thought so.)

On eclipse day I will not be driving from my house—gridlock will grip highways 97 and 26 on the weekend before August 21st and traffic to the path from all directions will be slower than the Bend Broadband wireless network.

I’ll be at the Oregon Airstream Club Blackout Rally on the shore of Lake Simtustus, the reservoir behind Pelton Dam, in a sea of silver among my fellow Airstreamers.

Below: Lake Simtustus site; position of the sun at first contact on August 21; Great American path

 

Eclipse 2006

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On March 29 an estimated 8,000 tourists, astronomers, NASA scientists and Egyptian officials gathered in Sallum, a town on the Libyan border usually visited only by workers and truckers entering and exiting Egypt.

The hotel in Mersa Matruh was 2 1/2 hours from the eclipse site and we rose unspeakably early to the pre-dawn rumble of motorcoaches and diesel fumes outside the hotel. “This reminds me of the Marine Corps,” groaned Ralph as we staggered from bed to bus seats in the dark.

At half past noon the moon passed before the sun in a perfect and cloudless sky. I’m now five for five.

I noticed that the shape of the corona—which is different every TSE and has something to do with sunspots and the solar magnetic field—exactly and mysteriously mirrored the design of the winged sun carvings on the back of my chair in the Nile Hilton dining room. I kept this observation to myself.

Above: Shades

Below:

Path of totality, 2006

Back on the bus

Press tent

Observing at Sallum. (Ralph. Get UP.)

Eclipse Solaire Totale

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The morning of totality was clear and cool, and sunny beach weather prevailed all day. Locals arrived and chilled, propped against a stick fence on the sand. In broken French, using my souvenir cloth that showed the partial phases, I tried to explain the use and timing of the eclipse shades to some curious Malagasy guys.

Totality, as always, was sublime.

Sadly, a prime viewing site that attracted 15,000 people—the village near Isalo National Park—was clouded out on June 21. Bam! I’m four for four. (And, I don’t know how I missed it, but the Green Flash was observed as the sun set just minutes from fourth contact. I’ve been watching for the elusive Flash since I lived in San Diego in the 70s, and I’m still zero for zero.)

Above: Late afternoon partial phase

Below:

Locals and travelers wait for totality

Samuel makes an appearance

Eclipse tutorial

C’mon Green Flash