What do Solar Eclipses have to do with Libraries? Or Watch out what you pull off the shelf

It started innocently enough. About ten years ago, I got a question on what time sunrise and sunset for Los Angeles were on particular days. But while I was leafing though Astronomical Tables of the Sun, Moon and Planets by Jean Meeus, (ISBN 0-943396-02-6), I glanced at page 7-51, “Solar Eclipses, 1950-2050.” I noticed that the next one was 07/11/91 at 07:11am in Hawaii. And it was also the longest totality in the whole 100-year span. It would be 30 seconds shorter in Baja. I thought a week in Hawaii in July was better than Baja. So we made plans.

The thing that makes total solar eclipses so special is that you have to be in just the right place at just the right time. The moon goes in front of the sun exactly, precisely. A little bit more or less and it doesn’t focus the shadow on the earth. The shadow is only about 40 miles wide and it only lasts for a few minutes at most. Anywhere else and it just gets dim, no corona.

After a few days of volcanoes and landscapes, and trying to scope out where we wanted to be, the big day arrived. It was totally fogged in. So we decided to just go down to the hotel parking lot. Imagine our surprise when about 15 seconds into the eclipse, the clouds parted!! It was absolutely spectacular. It looks like a big hole in the sky with a big gas flare and little ruby arcs right at the edge of the blacked out sun. We were hooked!

So the next one was Peru in 1994 and we thought what the heck, Machu Picchu and the Amazon and an eclipse all in one trip sounded pretty good. So we flew to Florida, went to the Florida Keys and then to Lima. This time we were on a package tour, so all the bags and stuff were toted for us and we were even with other librarians and teachers. Kindred spirits? Anyway, a short flight to Cuzco, Inca ruins and then a train to Machu Picchu. It looks just like the postcards, but it rained all day. Off to the high desert outside of Ariquipa and our second eclipse. We’re on the bus and it looks cloudy, so we race over to where it isn’t and when we get there, now it’s cloudy, so we start to race back, and finally just stopped and got setup. It was very nice and looked like the first, but the corona was different. A few days later we flew to the Amazon, sailed down the river three hours and stayed in huts on stilts after having been eaten to bits by little tiny bugs. Wild animals burst into the dining hall, but we’re world travelers and nothing phases us anymore!

The next eclipse was also in South America, off the Galapagos Islands. This time we were on a 90-foot yacht that went from island to island. We would snorkel in the morning and explore in the evening. At one point, I lay on the beach and these six-foot iguanas wandered up. But they were black, so I knew they were vegetarians! I felt much better having studied up. We also went to the Darwin Preserve where they have the very very old tortoises. There were blue footed boobies and frigate birds, seen nowhere else but the Galapagos. This time the eclipse was at noon and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. About 95 degrees. Just beautiful. On the way back we went to the Florida Everglades and flew out just as one of those devastating hurricanes hit.

The next one was in the Black Sea, as part of a cruise that included Athens, Greek islands and antiquities, Constantinople, Turkish ruins, lunch in Constanza, Romania and an afternoon in Odessa, Ukraine, famous for the opera and the steps where the Russian Navy rioted against the Czar. What made this eclipse great was that the captain put the boat in a current and idled with a tiny motor so we didn’t move at all. I put my video camera on a tripod on a table and just let it go. In three minutes, the eclipse never left the frame.

The last one was mid June of this year. An eleven-hour red-eye to London, a two-hour tour bus in London and we were off to Chobe National Game Park in Botswana. Morning safaris with lions and elephants, evening cruises with hippos and springbok. Then Victoria Falls by foot and by helicopter and the hotel made famous by Agatha Christie. At the Zambezi Sun in Livingston, Zambia, baboons snuck down and stole food off the diners’ plates. But we’re not phased; we’ve seen it before. Then a short jet trip to Lusaka, Zambia and a bus trip to a farm and a spectacular eclipse around three in the afternoon. We had locals that danced and chanted for us. Very memorable. Then we took a three-day train trip on Rovos Rail, the most luxurious train in the world, from Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe to Pretoria, South Africa. We stayed in Sun City, a complex with four hotels, casinos and waterparks. There we rode a hot air balloon in Pietersburg Game Park and saw white rhinos. Then 10 hours from Johannesburg to London and 11 hours from London to Los Angeles.

What’s next? According the book, the ultimate in vacation planners, it’s Australia in December 2002. We’re already practicing our “G’Day”s.

FYI, the next total eclipse in North America is August 01, 2008 in Northern Canada. August 21, 2017 is the closest to Los Angeles through 2050. They say it pays to plan ahead.

Bill Lee

Experian

Visit the Chapter website to view Bill Lee's photo of the 2001 solar eclipse in Zambia:

http://www.sla.org/chapter/csca/photogal2.htm

Do you have a special hobby or interest that you’d like to share with our membership? Please let the Newsletter Editors know!: susan.m.hendrickson@jpl.nasa.gov