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Eclipse chasing

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Two United States Air Force colonels inspecting the path of the eclipse of February 25, 1952 in preparation for an expedition to Africa.
An airplane (center-left) chasing the eclipse of August 21, 2017 in Tennessee.

Eclipse chasing is the pursuit of observing solar eclipses when they occur around the Earth.[1] Solar eclipses must occur at least twice and as often as five times a year across the Earth. Total eclipses may occur multiple times every few years.[2]

A person who chases eclipses is known as an umbraphile, meaning shadow lover.[3] Umbraphiles often travel for eclipses and use various tools to help view the Sun including solar viewers also known as eclipse glasses, as well as telescopes.[4][5]

As of 2017, three New Yorkers, Glenn Schneider, Jay Pasachoff, and John Beattie have each seen 33 total solar eclipses, the current record.[6] Donald Liebenberg, professor of astronomy at Clemson University in South Carolina has seen 26 traveling to Turkey, Zambia, China, the Cook Islands and others.[7]

History

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Further information: Airborne observatory § Early attempts

In the 19th century, Mabel Loomis Todd, an American editor and writer, and her husband David Peck Todd, a professor of astronomy at Amherst College, traveled around the world to view solar eclipses.[8]

In 1923, US Navy tried to observe the solar eclipse of September 10 from sixteen planes, including Felixstowe F5L biplane, "to determine the centerline of the eclipse from air." No photo recorded the eclipse. Officer and photographer Albert William Stevens was one of the pilots on this expedition; he is sometimes called "the father of airborne astronomy".[9] There was another attempt to observe a solar eclipse, this time from a dirigible. On 24 January 1925, U.S. Naval Observatory and U.S. Bureau of Standards gathered a group of astronomers to observe a total solar eclipse from the USS Los Angeles airship over the New York City, with Captain Edwin Taylor Pollock as a head of the group.[10][11] They used "two pairs of telescopic cameras", to capture inner and outer portions of Sun's corona, and a spectrograph. The expedition achieved good publicity, but it was not very successful in its observations - the dirigible was not very stable and the photos were blurred.[12] The next attempt was successful: an expedition of the Naval Observatory to observe the solar eclipse of April 28, 1930 on Honey Lake, California, with Vought 02U-1 plane equipped with a camera, recorded "the approach of the shadow".[9]

Army Air Corps and the National Geographic Society organized another expedition in 1932, to observe the eclipse of August 31. Accompanied by Lieutenant Charles D. McAllister of the Army Air Corps, Stevens took the first photograph of the Moon's shadow projected onto the Earth during a solar eclipse.[13][9][14]

Royal Canadian Air Force observed the solar eclipse of July 9, 1945 from four planes: "a Spitfire, a Mitchell, and two Ansons"; three planes used seven standard aerial photography cameras, "adjusted to automatically take exposures".[9] For the solar eclipse of May 9, 1948, National Geographic society organized several ground stations and two backup planes for a case of bad weather. Two B-29s, stationed on the Aleutian Islands, successfully observed and photographed the eclipse.[9]

For the solar eclipse of June 30, 1954, observations were made "from the open door of a special Lincoln aircraft". Photographs helped "to derive coronal brightness and polarization, along with sky brightness and polarization". Several missions were made in 1960s. Three NC-135 planes of the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory (LASL) were used for eclipses observations from 1965 to 1980. The planes were operated by the Atomic Energy Commission.[9]

Ten Minute Time Lapse Video of the Total Solar Eclipse on April 8, 2024, in Mazatlán, Mexico.

In 1973, the French Concorde prototype, c/n 001, was modified with roof-top portholes for a solar eclipse observation mission of 30 June 1973, at the end of the French testing programme. Observational instruments were installed on board, and the aircraft flew across Africa for 74 minutes of totality. One of the scientists was Donald Liebenberg, who have previously flown on LASL's NC-135.[15][9] The airplane is now at the Le Bourget Air and Space Museum on permanent display in eclipse livery, with the portholes displayed.[16]

In 2024, it was estimated by US tourism officials that at least 4 to 5 million people traveled from various parts of the country to witness the eclipse along the path of totality. This made it the largest travel day of the year in the country, bringing an estimated economic boost of $1.5 billion.[17]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Rapture Chasers - Every Little Thing by Gimlet Media". gimletmedia.com. Archived from the original on 2017-10-12. Retrieved 2017-10-12.
  2. ^ Kate Russo (1 August 2012). Total Addiction: The Life of an Eclipse Chaser. Springer Science & Business Media. ISBN 978-3-642-30481-1.
  3. ^ Kelly, Pat (2017-07-06). "Umbraphile, Umbraphilia, Umbraphiles, and Umbraphiliacs - Solar Eclipse with the Sol Alliance". Solar Eclipse with the Sol Alliance. Archived from the original on 2020-07-26. Retrieved 2017-08-24.
  4. ^ "How to View the 2017 Solar Eclipse Safely". eclipse2017.nasa.gov. Archived from the original on 2017-08-24. Retrieved 2017-08-24.
  5. ^ Wright, Andy (2017-08-16). "Chasing Totality: A Look Into the World of Umbraphiles". Atlas Obscura. Retrieved 2017-08-24.
  6. ^ Kersten, Jason (2017-08-28). "The New Yorkers Tied for the Total-Solar-Eclipse Record". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2017-08-24.
  7. ^ Greenfieldboyce, Nell (8 August 2017). "Go See It, Eclipse Chasers Urge. 'Your First Time Is Always Special'". NPR.org. Retrieved 2017-08-24.
  8. ^ Mansky, Jacqueline (2017-08-03). "A Brief History of Eclipse Chasers". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 2018-10-31.
  9. ^ a b c d e f g Dolci, Wendy Whiting (1997). "Milestones in Airborne Astronomy: From the 1920's to the Present" (PDF). SAE Transactions. 106: 1760–1770. ISSN 0096-736X.
  10. ^ LaFollette, Marcel Chotkowski (24 January 2017). "Science Service, Up Close: Up in the Air for a Solar Eclipse". Smithsonian Institution Archives. Retrieved 9 January 2024.
  11. ^ Maloney, Wendi A. (21 August 2017). "Looking to the Sky: Solar Eclipse 2017 | Timeless". The Library of Congress. Retrieved 9 January 2024.
  12. ^ Aceto, Guy (26 January 2022). "To Catch a Shadow: The Great 1925 Solar Eclipse Aerial Expedition". HistoryNet. Retrieved 9 January 2024.
  13. ^ "Stevens Photographs Eclipse 5 Miles In Air. Army Expert Says That Corona Sprang Into Sight as if Switch Was Snapped". The New York Times. September 1, 1932. p. 10. Retrieved 30 December 2009. Flying at an altitude of five miles near the centre line of the eclipse zone, the aerial unit of the National Geographic Society's eclipse expedition, conducted by Captain Albert W. Stevens and Lieutenant Charles D. McAllister of the Army Air Corps, had an unobstructed view of the eclipse throughout totality. ...
  14. ^ "Albert W. Stevens Photo From 23,000 Feet - Raymond H. Fogler Library - University of Maine". Raymond H. Fogler Library. 14 April 2022. Retrieved 9 January 2024.
  15. ^ Mulkin, Barb. "In Flight: The Story of Los Alamos Eclipse Missions". Los Alamos Science. Retrieved October 21, 2018.
  16. ^ Chris Hatherill (9 March 2016). "When Astronomers Chased a Total Eclipse in a Concorde". Motherboard. Vice.
  17. ^ Luscombe, Richard (2024-04-08). "'A mystical experience': millions watch total solar eclipse sweep across North America". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2024-04-09.
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