The Great North American Eclipse of 08Apr24

A tale of two sightings

 

“In rating natural wonders, on a scale of 1 to 10, a total eclipse of the Sun is a million.”

-         Fred Espenak

 

Progression of eclipse as captured with a small telescope at Mansfield, Ohio, USA

 

This is an account of the agony and the ecstasy associated with a successful chase of the Great North American total solar eclipse of 08 April 24 at two different locations in the USA by two Indian amateur astronomers who made their personal journeys from far off Mysore, India.

[For a detailed curtain raiser to this event, please see my last blog article here. For my other articles on total/annular solar eclipses, see 1, 2 ,3, 4 and 5.]

Anticipation

Ever since I saw the total solar eclipse of 21Aug17 at Clarkesville near Nashville, Tn, in the USA, the one to follow this year in the same country was on my radar constantly.  I started planning for it after watching a spectacular annular solar eclipse in my own country on 26Jan19 along with my longtime associate and amateur astronomer Mr Krishnamurthy Mudugodu (Murthy for short) and others at Bekal Beach on coastal Kerala. Though Murthy’s interest was equally aroused, he saw a firm opportunity for viewing the Great North American Eclipse only recently.

Our plans turned out to be intentionally divergent – mine to settle for a location in southern Texas, and his for a northeasterly location, in Ohio state.  After reviewing logistic and climatic factors, we settled on Waco, Texas, and Mansfield, Ohio respectively, hoping that both, or at least one of us, would end up lucky enough to view the much-anticipated event at a time of the year when weather and cloud coverage were rather highly unpredictable.

Expectation

Detailed interactive maps of this and other eclipses are readily available on several websites.  Particularly useful was this website where, apart from information in meticulous detail, the expected progression of the eclipse could also be simulated for any given location.  The predicted eclipse parameters for Waco, Tx and Mansfield, Ohio are shown in the maps below:

My choice of Waco was dictated partly by the fact that the duration of totality there was as much as 4 min, 13 sec.   Murthy settled for about a minute lower, but both durations are typically longer than can be expected for most total solar eclipses.   But the overriding consideration was the visibility of the totality phase of the eclipse; here we were both treading on uncertain grounds.  When it comes to weather, and particularly to cloud cover, luck plays a huge role. As it turned out, we were both equally lucky.

Preparation

Considering that I had to travel half way round the world from home, I laid aside all thoughts of carrying any of my telescopes and accessory equipment for a non-amateur style observation and recording of the event.  Instead, I settled for simple hand-held equipment, such as a pair of binoculars fitted with a solar filter for visual observation, and a 25x zoom Panasonic Lumix camera, also fitted with a similar filter for basic photography (see picture below). Even here, I opted for a light-weight 8x40 Cason binoculars instead of my preferred 7x50 Olympus binoculars, and desisted the temptation to carry a massive 125x Nikon Coolpix P1000 Camera.  

For a super-senior citizen on the wrong side of 85, and all alone on a month-long foreign trip that extended to Mexico and Canada as well, travelling light was a necessity.  Moreover, I had to be able to hold the equipment steady with both hands to watch an event unfolding rather rapidly at an uncomfortably high altitude on a hot afternoon. I therefore focused on merely watching the event with my eyes rather than recording it since there were plenty of others to do the latter, including Murthy.  Being merely a senior citizen, Murthy suffered less from such limitations, and had the additional advantage of travelling with his family, with the prospect of others joining him at the venue. He carried several items of equipment, including a small portable telescope. He had also improvised a number of useful attachments to enhance the visibility of the event. 

Weather Outlook

We started looking up weather predictions for eclipse day at the two locations at least a fortnight in advance; they were definitely not encouraging. About a week before, there were no significant changes. Three or four days before, the outlook turned distinctly hostile, with both rain and extensive cloud coverage forecast over Waco at least, about an hour on either side of totality, which was around 1:35 pm local time. For me, visions of a bygone experience in distant China way back in 22 July 2009 started taking shape (see here).  There was nothing I could do but mark time with increasing unease. Murthy’s experience couldn’t have been any less agonizing.  He was beset with even greater uncertainty since he was to decide on a location only just a few days ahead.

Journey

I reached Houston from Bangalore on 5th April and proceeded to Austin Tx two days later after touring the Johnson Space Center which had been heavily waterlogged during my last visit to the USA.  I then made it to Waco, Tx by bus on the eventful day.  I had settled for the open grounds adjacent to the McLane Football Stadium as the venue, where public viewing had been organized by the Baylor University authorities.  My travel itinerary was inflexible, and I had really no plan B if Waco had proved untenable. I had considered Hillsboro as an option, but gave up the idea when I found its weather pattern was not much different from Waco.

Based in Durham, North Carolina, Murthy started his long road journey with his family on 5th April, with halts at Blacksburg and Johnstown near Columbus on the way, joined by friends at both places. Before proceeding to the eventual venue at Mansfield, he had time for an elaborate rehearsal of the sequence of activities that were to unfold on the eventful day.  He also had ample time to soak in the beautiful unpolluted night sky and take delight in locating familiar objects, but at a higher latitude (40^o N) than he was accustomed to at home (12^o.5 N). His itinerary was somewhat flexible, with Springfield as an alternate venue.  He dropped the idea when he realized that the duration of totality there was almost a minute less, and the extra minute at Mansfield was, in his own words, ‘worth its weight in gold’. They reached the beautiful Kingwood Gardens in Mansfield early morning and began their long day’s activities amidst picturesque surroundings.

Weather

When I left Austin by an early morning bus for Waco on eclipse day, one look at the skies and my worst fears threatened to come true. It was as dark and overcast as I had seen anywhere for a long time.  The best that happened by the time I reached the bus station at Waco was a distinctly clear silver shading to the dark clouds.  Buoyed up by this discovery, I leisurely walked up for about an hour to the great big football stadium whose backyards were being thrown open for public viewing, at a price.  After a long wait due to bureaucratic delays, I finally entered the ‘reserved’ space around the stadium a part of which can be seen in the picture below around noontime when the sky had begun to undergo a remarkable transformation. 

As always when I am traveling, my daughter Asha kept tab of my exact whereabouts with live tracking on her mobile!  Below is a screenshot she sent me minutes after I had reached my location initially.

By this time, I was acutely aware that the location behind the stadium afforded no protection from the Sun and no elevated place to sit and watch the eclipse comfortably.  So, I moved out of the enclosure hurriedly and shifted to a place adjacent to the stadium which shielded me from the direct Sun to just the right extent without affecting my view. More importantly, there were a row of concrete blocks to sit on or lean against as and when needed.  Here is a picture of one of them, right next to a precious shade-giving tree (barely visible to the right), with the equipment resting on my folded overcoat. This turned out to be my savior for the day!

Murthy rang up from Mansfield with the cheerful news that the sky was decently clear there and he had begun to deploy his instruments. It looked like we might be able to see the eclipse after all, defying the agonizing expectations.  I checked the latest weather prediction for Waco, and found to my delight that the previous gloomy figures had been pushed forward by two hours – just the time needed to complete the totality phase unobstructed. It was as if the elements had conspired to favour me, yet again, for the seventh time in a row!

Partial phase

The 80-minute-long partial phase of the Great North American Eclipse had begun and my excitement began to grow with every bite of the mighty Sun the puny Moon had eaten away relentlessly.  Here is a sequence of this phase I captured with my Lumix camera, set at full 25x optical zoom and auto-focus:

For the most part of the partial phase, clouds were playing hide and seek with the Sun, without blotting it out altogether.

Murthy’s sequence of superior quality pictures taken with his small refractor telescope are displayed as a composite visual at the beginning of this article.

Totality at Waco!

As the Sun’s disk was being gobbled up by a rapidly advancing moon, there was a noticeable drop in both brightness and temperature of the surroundings, and this was a welcome relief too from the harsh Sun.

As beginning of totality (second contact) approached, everything around us started dimming, the temperature dropped noticeably and produced a soothing effect, the heightened excitement was palpable, and it gave way to indescribable amazement at the sight of a spectacular diamond ring in a flash, which disappeared almost instantaneously to reveal the fabled solar corona which is visible only on such an occasion. To my surprise the corona looked like a small symmetrical ring around the Sun, and indeed some viewers close to me remarked that it was the ring of fire.  Of course, it could not be, because we were watching a total eclipse, not an annular one that could also be seen in that part of the world on 23^rd October last year.  Perhaps it is no wonder that it appeared like a ring of fire because the now totally cloudless sky around the Sun could still be seen faintly.  It was far from the level of darkness normally expected.  I will not go into plausible reasons why this was so.  However, as a visual spectacle, it was a bit of a letdown. Consequently, the star field surrounding the Sun was barely visible, and I had a hard time identifying even the planets Venus and Jupiter. (Also, I could not identify the Bailey’s beads just before the diamond ring effect)

As planned, I refrained from trying out any photography during this 4+ minutes of precious time when one’s vision has to be firmly planted on the corona and its neighborhood.  As planned before, I started looking through my binoculars after removing the filter covering it.

Below is the only picture I took during totality, with my OnePlus Open smartphone, unedited. It does appear to be overexposed, but still the level of brightness around the Sun is surprisingly high. I have no cogent explanation for it at this time.

Below are two pictures, one showing my surroundings sometime during the totality phase and the other a short while after the end of totality. The level of brightness during totality is much higher than I expected:

To conclude the narrative of my observations at Waco, below is a picture of me holding my binoculars, with one side fitted with a solar filter and the other closed, and observing the Sun during a partial phase of the eclipse, well before onset of totality.  My camera is hanging down over my right shoulder.  I also had my OnePlus Open smartphone in my shirt pocket. This simple arrangement served me well. 

The Mansfield Report

I was in constant touch with Murthy before, during and after the event, which was his first experience with a total solar eclipse.  He went to the venue with meticulous preparation, took some fine pictures without compromising on the visual observations, and led a team of both enthusiasts and serious observers on an exciting mission. The picture below apparently shows all the members of his team at the lush green Kingwood Gardens in Mansfield, a far more picturesque place than the one I visited. 

The Mansfield, Ohio Group

Back Row (l to r): Meenakshi Krishnamurthy, Aishwarya Nair, Krishnamurthy Mudugodu, Harshavardhan Chaturvedi and Brian Henning

Front Row: Maithri Krishnamurthy and Shreyas S Bhat

Here is a picture of the Mansfield group deploying all their ware and getting down to business. This is when the staff employed at the garden center mistook them for an eclipse filming crew!

Below is a map of the exact location at which the group set up their day long vigil: 

Here is a picture of Murthy with some of his equipment: 

The picture below depicts the right way to observe any astronomical phenomenon, but viewing the solar eclipse on a hot afternoon may not have been a comfortable experience! 

Below is a summary of Murthy’s key observations conveyed to me both orally and in writing

·      The weather was better than in Waco even early in the morning, and kept improving as the day progressed.  Though there was a haze much of the time, the observations were not significantly affected.

·      One of the group’s pictures of the partial phase taken with a Celestron NexStar 8SE telescope shows three tight groups of sunspots (see picture below)

·      The 8SE telescope can itself be seen in the picture below with its proud owner: 

·      Murthy was able to see the diamond ring effect at third contact, but not at the second.  Here is a picture of it taken with a Sony Alpha A7III mirrorless camera with 7300 mm focal length lens system:

 

·      A careful look at the picture below reveals a row of Bailey’s beads just before the diamond ring effect. This picture was taken with the same camera as above. 

·      Here is a view of the solar corona captured near the midpoint of totality. A more asymmetric and spikier corona was expected since the eclipse is happening near the 11-year peak of solar activity. At this point in time, I have no idea why this was not realized. 

·      The video clip below, shot at Kingwood Gardens in Mansfield during totality, clearly shows darker surroundings* all around than the ones I saw in Waco. This explains why Murthy could see both Venus and Jupiter, and I missed them. Unfortunately, he seems to have missed out on trying to capture the view/s with his smartphone amidst all the excitement. So did I!

[*Murthy describes the darkness he saw as similar to the one after sunset.]

 

Murthy’s final summation:

It was wonderful to experience the gradual decrease in brightness and temperature of the surrounding environment as the totality approached and progressed. There was an eerie silence which immediately turned into a collective gasp of exuberance as the totality began. At this moment we opened all the solar filter caps to capture the totally eclipsed sun on camera. We also took a step back to soak in the moment and directly see the eclipsed sun. Experiencing the spectacular beauty of the total solar eclipse live is something that is hard to express in words.

In the meantime, during the partial eclipse stage a few curious onlookers approached us to see what we were doing, and were enthralled to see the eclipsed sun through various different lenses. The solar filter-capped binoculars were a definite crowd favorite!

In conclusion, it was certainly a memorable experience of a phenomenon of nature which rarely repeats in a particular place. We were one of the early arrivers and the last to leave. We were lucky to have clear sky in spite of partly cloudy weather forecast.

Appendix

[ I had sent the following note to the prospective followers of my blog on the day after I viewed the eclipse]         

Here is some news about the great North American Total Solar Eclipse of yesterday (8Apr24) that I observed successfully from Waco, Texas. It was the seventh time in a row that luck favored me with total/annular solar eclipses. In this context, my last blog article may be relevant. The next article will describe how Krishnamurthy and I were able to explore the event of yesterday from two very different locations in the USA.  At Waco, the sky was totally overcast and made it virtually hopeless for a visible event, but the weather made a miraculous turnaround as the day progressed. The partial phase could be seen playing hide and seek with the clouds, but as totality approached, there were no clouds anywhere near the Sun! I would like to flatter myself that it happened because of my presence at Waco!? Please do look forward to my next blog article, about this event, after my present long trip abroad.

Fast Forward

While Murthy and I are both basking in the glory of the Great North American Eclipse of last month, my sight is fleetingly set on Valencia, Spain for the next total solar eclipse that will last barely a minute, on 12^th August 2026! But, the one to follow a year later on 02 Aug 27 at Luxor, Egypt, lasting a whopping 6 min, 23 sec, would be, to borrow a description from Murthy and twist it appropriately, ‘worth its wait (wait, this is not a spelling mistake!) in gold!’ I hope he and others, especially our mutual friend Ilavenil, who was denied the opportunity to see both the last two great American eclipses, can join me in these adventures.     

Tailpiece

Just two days after I saw the eclipse at Waco, I had the immense satisfaction of visiting Chichen Itza, a complex of fabulous Mayan relics near Cancun in Mexico, rated one of the seven wonders of the world.  This also meant that I had seen all the seven wonders, adding to my collection of seven total/annular solar eclipses spanning equally diverse locations on the globe.  My next blog article will address this aspect of my adventures, so appropriately suggested by one of my acquaintances.

 

 

The Great North American Eclipse!

Welcome to the total solar eclipse of 08Apr24

(Sorry, not visible in India)

 

“If you're outside the path of totality of eclipse, if there's any way you can get into the path of totality for the eclipse, do it. Take the day off. Take the kids out of school. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for most people to see a total eclipse, and it is one of the grandest sights in all of nature. It's something you'll always remember, and you'll pass stories of it onto your grandchildren.”

- Fred Espenak

The bright wispy corona visible around a totally eclipsed Sun

 

[As I get ready to journey half way around the globe to the USA to chase this, the fifth total solar eclipse since my inaugural one in 1980, I am writing this as a welcome message to what should be yet another fabulous astronomical event.]

Alas! The exhortations of Fred Espenak, the great eclipse chaser and inveterate ‘computer’ of eclipses for NASA, will have to be ignored by everyone in India, and indeed in the whole of the eastern hemisphere, because the entire path, let alone the much narrower and crucial path of totality, of this rare total solar eclipse, is confined solely to the western hemisphere (Mexico, the USA and Canada).  However, the really significant part of its progression can be followed live in India for about an hour on Monday, 08th April 24 from 23:15 to Tuesday, 09th April 24 around 00:15 (approximate times), with the maximum occurring around 23:47, on several online channels, including: 

https://www.timeanddate.com/live/eclipse-solar-2024-april-8

Solar Eclipses

First, let me review what solar eclipses are. The following text is adapted from one of my earliest blog articles on eclipses (see here): 

Eclipses of the Sun and the Moon as viewed from any place on Earth are possible only because of a fortuitous and accidental circumstance associated with the Sun and the Moon. While the Sun is about four hundred times bigger than the Moon, it is also nearly as many times farther away from the Earth as is the Moon. Therefore, they appear to be of nearly the same apparent size (about 0.5 degree in angular diameter) as seen from the Earth. On the occasions when these three bodies are nearly in a line, solar or lunar eclipses, which may be partial or total, are possible. A partial solar eclipse results when the lunar disk hides only a portion of the solar disk on a new moon day. A total solar eclipse happens when the lunar disk is slightly larger than the solar disk and blots it out of sight from the earth at the viewing site, revealing the spectacular sight of the solar corona, which can be viewed with the naked eye. An Annular Eclipse results if the lunar disk is slightly smaller than the solar disk and a thin peripheral ring of the Sun can still be seen at maximum eclipse. 

Total and annular solar eclipses are extremely rare events at any specific place on earth and last only a few minutes at most.  For the duration of a total solar eclipse, day turns nearly into night and produces some breathtakingly beautiful effects, justifying Fred Espenak’s exhortations cited above.

With reference to the diagram below, total and annular eclipses are possible at locations in the umbral and antumbral shadow regions, and partial ones outside of them, in the penumbral shadow regions.

[From nineplanets.org]

Rarity of Total and Annular Eclipses

From the relative motions and sizes of the Sun, the Moon and the Earth, one can show that total and annular solar eclipses can occur, on the average, about once in eighteen months, and hence they are not really infrequent.   However, considering that the surface of the globe is predominantly water, and populated land area is relatively small, few of them end up stirring popular interest. The narrow path of the eclipse, the width and extent of totality, and its short duration, all ensure that fewer still are of non-academic interest. The probability that a viewer gets to witness one such eclipse at any specific location is estimated to be once in about 375 years! This makes these events truly rare and one may not even get a chance to see even one total eclipse in one’s lifetime. This means, a serious observer will have to travel to where the event happens, rather than wait for it to happen, and many a time this means travelling large distances to far off places.  For me, next month’s eclipse means a journey half way across the globe, just like the last one in 2017!

Totality

For a thoroughly detailed and graphic description of the unique experience of totality, I can do no better than to quote Mark Littmann, Fred Espenak and Ken Willcox from their book The Experience of Totality, first published in 2008:

First contact. A tiny nick appears on the western side of the Sun. The eye detects no difference in the amount of sunlight. Nothing but that nick portends anything out of the ordinary. But as the nick becomes a gouge in the face of the Sun, a sense of anticipation begins. This will be no ordinary day.

Still, things proceed leisurely for the first half hour or so, until the Sun is more than half covered. Now, gradually at first, then faster and faster, extraordinary things begin to happen. The sky is still bright, but the blue is a little duller. On the ground around you the light is beginning to diminish. Over the next 10 to 15 minutes, the landscape takes on a steely gray metallic cast.

As the minutes pass, the pace quickens. With about a quarter hour left until totality, the western sky is now darker than the east, regard­less of where the Sun is in the sky. The shadow of the Moon is approaching. Even if you have never seen a total eclipse of the Sun before, you know that something amazing is going to happen, is happening now--and that it is beyond normal human experience.

Less than fifteen minutes until totality. The Sun, a narrowing crescent, is still fiercely bright, but the blueness of the sky has deepened into blue-gray or violet. The darkness of the sky begins to close in around the Sun. The Sun does not fill the heavens with brightness anymore.

Five minutes to totality. The darkness in the west is very noticeable and gathering strength, a dark amorphous form rising upward and spread­ing out along the western horizon. It builds like a massive storm, but in utter silence, with no rumble of distant thunder. And now the darkness begins to float up above the horizon, revealing a yellow or orange twilight beneath. You are already seeing through the Moon's narrow shadow to the resurgent sunlight beyond.

The acceleration of events intensifies. The crescent Sun is now a blazing white sliver, like a welder's torch. The darkening sky continues to close in around the Sun, faster, engulfing it.

Minutes have become seconds. The ends of the bare sliver of the Sun break into individual points of intense white light--Baily's Beads-- the last rays of sunlight passing through the deepest lunar valleys. Opposite the crescent, a ghostly round silhouette looms into view. It is the dark limb of the Moon, framed by a white opalescent glow which creates a halo around the darkened Sun. The corona--the most striking and unexpected of all the features of a total eclipse--is emerging.

Almost instantaneously, the incredibly thin crescent Sun fragments into a series of brilliant beads and short arcs which dwindle and vanish in rapid succession. And now, there is only one bead, set like a single dazzling diamond in a ring."

But its penetrating brilliance rapidly fades as if it were sucked into an abyss.

Totality! 

Where the Sun once stood, there is a black disk in the sky, outlined by the soft pearly white glow of the corona, about the brightness of a Full Moon. Small but vibrant reddish features stand at the eastern rim of the Moon's disk, contrasting vividly with the white of the corona and the black where the Sun is hidden. These are the prominences, giant clouds of hot gas in the Sun's lower atmosphere. They are always a surprise, each unique in shape and size, different yesterday and tomorrow from what they are at this special moment.

You are standing in the shadow of the Moon.

It is dark enough to see Venus and Mercury and whichever of the brightest planets and stars happen to be close to the Sun’s position and above the horizon. But it is not the dark of night. Looking across the landscape at the horizon in all directions, you see beyond the shadow to where the eclipse is not total, an eerie twilight of orange and yellow. From this light beyond the darkness which envelops you comes an inexorable sense that time is limited.

Now, at the midpoint in totality, the corona stands out most clearly, its shape and extent never quite the same from one eclipse to another. And only the eye can do the corona justice, its special pattern of faint wisps and spikes on this day never seen before and never to be seen again.

Yet around you at the horizon is a warning that totality is drawing to an end. The west is brightening while in the east the darkness is deepening and descending toward the horizon. Above you, prominences appear at the western edge of the Moon. The edge brightens.

Suddenly totality is over! A brilliant bead of sunlight appears. This heavenly diamond quickly grows into a band of several jewels which merge together to form the returning crescent Sun. The dark shadow of the Moon silently slips past you and rushes off toward the east.

Total vs Annular vs Partial

Both total and annular eclipses arise from the same relative dispositions of the three celestial objects – the Sun, the Moon and the Earth. During a total eclipse the solar disk is completely covered by the lunar shadow. During an annular eclipse, the lunar shadow is not large enough to do so and this results in a ring of bright solar light, popularly called the ‘ring of fire’, visible to the viewer at eclipse maximum.  Except for this interesting visual effect, the annular eclipse is hardly different from a partial eclipse. In neither case does daylight disappear fully to make way for a night-like experience, for whatever duration.  For this reason, annular eclipses as well as partial ones are far from being the extraordinary visual spectacles that total eclipses are.

During a total eclipse, some people living just outside the belt of totality are satisfied with observing an eclipse just under 100% rather than travel a few kilometers that takes them inside the belt for a full 100% view, however brief.  Sadly, they are missing the sight of a lifetime since nothing short of a 100% eclipse produces the unique sequence of effects that begin to unfold rapidly at the onset and just before the end of totality. Looking at even a 99% partial eclipse is like looking at an empty nest without its occupant.

In actual fact, travelling into the belt of totality doesn’t guarantee a successful observation of a total eclipse.  However carefully the observing location may have been chosen, luck also plays a significant role in one’s success. This is because of the vagaries of weather; even a hovering cloud may blot out the Sun during the short period of totality and spoil the view irretrievably.

My tryst with solar eclipses

The first total solar eclipse I viewed was on 16 Feb 1980 from the Tungabhadra Dam site in North Karnataka, India.  Visible on an absolutely clear blue afternoon sky, it was a sight that has lived permanently etched in my memory, as are the ones that followed.  I have described it in my inaugural blog here, on its thirtieth anniversary.  After that, there was an inexcusable hiatus until my second one, in a beautiful place near Hangzhou in far off China, on 22 Jul 2009.  The fact that it was partially affected by the much-dreaded clouds was mitigated by its exceptionally long duration of totality, lasting 5 min 40 sec where I observed it. I have described the event in considerable detail, along with my adventures both before and after, in my blog here. Below is a photograph of me with my observing gear consisting of just a pair of 7x50 binoculars mounted on a mini tripod:

My third one was in the coastal city of Palu in Central Sulawesi Province of Indonesia, on 09 Mar 2016, another exceptionally beautiful event in a great setting close to the central line of totality. It is saddening to recall that Palu was devastated a few years later by a strong earthquake, followed by a tsunami, wreaking great destruction of life and property.  Here is a picture of me with my observing equipment being given a thumbs-up by a Finnish tourist and eclipse enthusiast at the eclipse festival that had been organized concurrently at Palu to commemorate the event:

My last one was just a year later, on 21 Aug 2017, at a nondescript location not far from the central line of totality at Clarkesville, near Nashville, Tennessee, USA. It was also seen in totally clear skies. Here is a picture of me with my simple observing gear waiting under the harsh sun for the approach of totality:

In a recent blog article (see here), I have touched upon my memorable experience with the annular solar eclipse of 26 Dec 2019 observed with a close-knit group of associates and friends at the coastal town of Bekal in north Kerala. Here is a picture of me and some of the members of my group as we waited for the annularity to set in:

Previously, I had written about the great annular eclipse of 15 Jan 2010 (see here) which I had observed from Dhanushkodi, overlooking Sri Lanka, in the Rameshwaram district of Tamil Nadu.

I have been particularly lucky in having been able to see all six of the events I have observed so far in different countries, including two in India, totally successfully. I hope that in future not only my opportunity but also my luck continues to stay with me. 

Eclipses and USA 

Incidentally, the USA happens to be the rich ‘beneficiary’ of as many as three great solar eclipses within a short period of seven years, from 2017 to 2024. All three of them touch large areas of continental USA as the respective maps indicate. The first one, on 21 Aug 2017, was a total solar eclipse that could be seen over a vast stretch of land spanning from the northwest to central east (see map below). 

Path of totality of 21Aug17 Eclipse

The second is the annular eclipse of last year, on 14 Oct 23 (see map below).  It has been described in a previous blog article (see here) though I had to give it a go bye for reasons outlined in my write-up. 

Path of annularity of 14Oct23 Eclipse

The third one is the forthcoming total solar eclipse of 08Apr24, the subject of the present article. 

Eclipse of 08Apr24

The eclipse on 08Apr24 encompasses the largest area of populated land ever, stretching from western Mexico, through a vast swathe of continental USA up north and northeast, and into the southeastern part of Canada as can be seen from the following NASA map:

Below is an animation showing the umbral (thick central) and penumbral shadows of the Moon sweeping over the north American continent on 08Apr24. A total eclipse will be visible at all points lying on the umbral shadow region.

I am planning to observe the eclipse from the Baylor University McLane Stadium at Waco, Texas, USA, one of numerous prominent locations in Texas where the probability of clear skies is reasonably high. The eclipse parameters for this location are given in the map below. Though not too close to the central line of totality, the duration of the eclipse here is a little over four minutes, more than most total eclipses offer.

Eclipse parameters at Waco, Texas, USA

As on all previous occasions, I am hoping for clear skies on eclipse day, at least during the four and odd minutes of totality.  I have no clear plans in my itinerary for any last-minute switch over to a different location based on unfavorable weather predictions for the day.  On the morning of 8 April, I am due to travel to Waco from Austin, Texas, which itself is well inside the totality belt.  This gives me some leeway if the weather in Waco, about 100 km north of Austin, is not too promising. Also, if need arises, I can consider moving westward to a location like Frederiksberg, about the same distance away, if any transport is available. 

I also consider it pointless to go to a far-off place just to see an eclipse however unique it may be. To get the best out of the visit, one has to make it part of a much longer tourist trip.  I did that in 2017, making the eclipse visit as a part of a long three-week trip to USA, and then on to Europe for another three weeks. This time I will be restricting myself to North America, visiting Mexico and Canada besides the USA, on a five-week trip.

Epilogue

For eclipse chasers, less popularly known as umbraphiles, the name of Dr Fred Espenak stands out like a legend. More popularly known as “Mr Eclipse”, he was until recently the human brain behind all the eclipse predictions made for NASA. Now a retired Emeritus astrophysicist, he became interested in astronomy when he was 7–8 years old, and had his first telescope when he was around 9–10 years old.  The first eclipse he saw was on 7 March 1970, which sparked his interest in eclipses, and he has since seen as many as 30 of them, far more than most eclipse chasers can boast of.  He is the co-author of a notable recent work on solar eclipses titled Totality (see picture below showing him together with the title page of the publication).

The following quote is attributed to Espenak in this publication subtitled, ‘The Great North American Eclipse of 2024’:

 

“In rating natural wonders, on a scale of 1 to 10, a total eclipse of the Sun is a million.”

I would have agreed with this assessment until last October when I saw the dense central core of the Milky Way galaxy with the naked eye at the Hanle Dark Sky Reserve in the Himalayas of Eastern Ladakh, India. If anything could outdo my eclipse experience, this was it. I rate it just a wee bit higher, at a million plus one!