There will be tons of articles on where to see and how to photograph a solar eclipse, with the next one due on August 12. I have been chasing solar eclipses for 47 years, so I thought I'd write about what has changed over that time.
A solar eclipse is the closest thing I can think of to what some people call a “religious experience”. The sky goes dark in the middle of the day. The birds go to roost, while cows head back to their barns. The winds die down and there is a remarkable hush.
If you’re in the path of totality, you’ll get to see the sun’s corona, which is visible to us only during the few seconds or minutes of a total solar eclipse. If you’re in the path, and on high ground, you can watch the shadow of the moon race towards you, across open fields or open water, at 1,500 miles per hour.
Observers within the Moon's umbra (the darkest part of the shadow) see a total solar eclipse, while those in the penumbra see a partial solar eclipse. If the Moon is slightly farther from Earth and appears too small to cover the Sun completely, an annular eclipse occurs, leaving a bright ring of sunlight visible around the Moon.
It’s a sight like no other. I should know. I’ve now watched and photographed seven of them.
Eclipses only happen due to a quirk of nature. The sun is 400 times larger than the moon, but the sun is also almost exactly 400 times further away. When things line up just right, during a new moon when the sun, moon and Earth are in nearly a straight line, the moon's shadow falls on the face of the Earth.
If the moon is closer on its orbit (its perigee), it casts a bigger shadow and the eclipse lasts longer. If it is further from the Earth (its apogee), its shadow is smaller and the eclipse is shorter.
A total solar eclipse occurs about once every 18 months, but most are over water, or Siberia in winter, or over the Arctic or Antarctic or similarly hard or expensive places to get to.
Eclipses that occur over land that you can affordably get to are that not common. If you don’t want to travel, one happens over any given spot on earth every 350 to 400 years. So, all you need to do is wait… and then remember to go outside when it happens!
My first eclipse: February 26 1979
My first eclipse happened rather spontaneously. We’re talking decades before the advent of the internet, when only readers of astronomy magazines had any inkling that it was coming.
So, a week before, my then brother-in-law suggested I join a small group of 'keeners', who were going to Toppenish, Washington. I checked with my photo dealer, rented a Celestron C-90 with a solar filter and an adapter to my camera, and away we went!
We arrived in the small town of Ellensburg, Washington, late the day before, popped into a local motel and booked a room with no trouble. We dined at a local cafe that night and the waitress told us she couldn’t understand why there were so many people in town!
Mobility is key, then or now, for eclipse viewing. The morning of the eclipse, my brother-in-law and myself were racing down gravel section roads looking for holes in the cloud. We got to an intersection and stopped to consult the clouds. I chose right, while he went left. Totality was to start in less than ten minutes. I saw the eclipse, he did not.
Back then I had no idea how to use the telescope, and my tripod was not sturdy enough for it, so my photos were blurry. Totality was just 2 minutes 25 seconds. But I was hooked.
In the aftermath, I learned something rather important. Cheap Mylar filters have a blueish cast and the photos look awful. Spend a little extra coin and get filters with a golden tone. It’s not the real color, either, but it's much more pleasing.
I had a pair of electronics stores to run, and thus neither the time nor budget to gallivant around the world after eclipses. So I had to wait 12 years.
My second solar eclipse: July 11 1991
After a 12-year wait, we drove from southern British Columbia to San Jose Del Cabo, in Mexico’s Baja – a 5,000-mile round trip.
This was “The Big One”, the longest totality for some 300 years, either side of now. At its maximum eclipse, some distance further south, totality was a full 6 minutes 53 seconds, of which we got to see 6 minutes and 47 seconds from San Jose del Cabo.
A couple of evenings prior to the eclipse, we met a lady in the lobby of our hotel who taught English and wanted to chat – most likely to improve her own English. The Mexican government had worried about people damaging their eyes, watching the eclipse without proper eye protection.
So they were setting up solar filter-equipped TV cameras all along the path, and would broadcast it live over and over, as the shadow moved down the coast.
I asked her if she was going to watch the eclipse on TV, but she told me that she was going to watch it in the time-honored Mexican way. “And what is that?” I asked. “From under the bed!” she replied.
On the morning of the eclipse was 100% cloud cover. Many folks opted to drive an hour north, to Santiago, hoping they’d gain an extra seven seconds of totality, and that the skies it would be clearer inland.
We opted to set up on the grounds of a condo where some of our group were staying. We were really roughing it, as we had to suffer being on a cool, manicured lawn, 20 feet from the whirlpool, 30 feet from the swimming pool, 50 feet from the ocean and 100 feet from the bar. And we had lots of company!
The best bit was that roughly 30 minutes before totality, the clouds vanished and everyone had a spectacular view. Still we suffered through with only 6 minutes and 45 seconds of umbral time. Life was rough!
In contrast, many Americans flew to Hawaii, as it was also on the center-line. But Hawaii had severe clouds and – unless you were one of the exalted few allowed above the clouds, on the grounds of the telescopes atop Mauna Kea – nobody saw a thing!
A PBS documentary of the Hawaiian version of the 1991 eclipse interviewed one family who could not find accommodation, so flew into Honolulu, stayed awake for 36 hours and flew home. All without seeing the eclipse! Getting clouded out is a risk that all eclipse chasers take.
What surprised me more than anything else was that, after totality ended, even though the partial phases still had an hour or more to go, within minutes the people cleared out and the town was empty. You could have shot a cannon down the main street and not hit a soul. Absolutely amazing!
So, two eclipses down and five to go. In 1998 the internet was in its infancy, with dial-up modems and slow connections, having very little influence on people’s lives. Cellphones would not become mainstream for another three to five years. But before long, the internet would take hold of the world – and everything would change…
The next installment of David Young's 47-year diary of a solar eclipse photographer will be published soon
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