Boreal B[l]og

Yes, we did see this.  And we were lucky.  My video on YouTube was a simple camcorder set up facing the Sun and then left running, while I and Maria, a young German astrophysicist, watched.  This was Maria’s first eclipse, and she wanted to see it more than anybody I’ve known.  Her crying is not unusual; total solar eclipses are beautiful, primal, spiritual events.  They affect us deeply!

This was my 20th eclipse trip:  I’ve seen 11 total eclipses (this was my 12th), 5 ring (annular) and 3 times missed from clouds, wind or rain.  This trip featured a flight over the S. Pacific along the track, which is why I and many others signed up for it.  Seeing it from a plane is a 100% probability as opposed to the ground, especially on islands, where mobility is limited if there are eclipse blocking clouds.  Unfortunately, a week prior to the eclipse, the plane was taken out of service for major mechanical problems (or so we were told).  We had no plane and were going to see the eclipse in the worst possible spot:  the Argentinian Patagonia in mid-winter at the end of the eclipse track.  I’m a weather junkie, and all the models were pessimistic about clear skies in Patagonia for eclipse day.  Worse, because of the low position of the Sun, ANY significant horizon cloud would kill the eclipse.

I almost didn’t get out of the US.  Tucson to Houston flight was diverted to San Antonio because of T-storms over Houston.  I got to Houston at the other end of the airport from the Intl Terminal, plane to depart in 25 minutes.  Frankly, because of the lack of the eclipse flight and the distance traveled to likely see nothing, I would not have minded missing the plane and going home. But I did make the plane and was in Buenos Aires the next morning.

We stayed in B.A. 2 days then flew to Patagonia (more worries, because there had been an air traffic control strike as well which had cancelled many flights and made many others late) and got there with mostly cloudy skies that worsened as time progressed.  However, I knew high pressure was building in the eastern Pacific, and more importantly, the water vapor fetch that had been slamming into Patagonia shut off the night before the eclipse.  We had clear skies the next morning.  We first went out and viewed the southern sky and saw the ISS pass overhead.  On the way to the glacier, I got the idea to stop the bus and view the Magellanic Clouds from a dark site.  I was a bit nervous about holding everybody up, but NOBODY vetoed the idea, and several who had never seen them before got a chance.

The glacier was fine, the skies completely clear, the wind light.  I was starting to get optimistic, which is an oxymoron when used in conjunction with eclipse day.

We left the glacier at noon and were back in El Calafate at 1:30.  We got into 4  x 4s that held 15 people, had chains, and went up a single track that topped out about 3000 feet above the town and Lago Argentino nearby.

The views were stunning.

By this time, there were clouds on the mountains, which worried me, although they were mostly lenticular and were dissipating as they moved north, about where we were told (wrong, as it turned out) where the Sun would set.  First contact, where the Moon begins to cover the Sun, occurred about 1 hr 5 min before totality.  It couldn’t happen soon enough.  Clouds were starting to build on the mountains.  But when we realized that the Sun couldn’t possibly set where we were told it would, I finally relaxed, knowing that everything would be fine.

It was a beautiful eclipse.  Photographs, especially mine, don’t do it justice.  The corona was not particularly impressive, but the low Sun and the long, beautiful diamond ring were.  What captivated all of us was the shadow cone, as the Moon’s shadow lengthened as the Earth curved away from it.  This is captured very well on the photographs, and I saw it head into space after the eclipse was over.  It just appeared as a darker than normal area of sky.

Each total solar eclipse is special in its own way.  This one will be remembered by me for three things: (1) the difficulty getting there and my constant checking of multiple weather models of the south Atlantic, (2) the stunning shadow cone, and (3) Maria, a delightful young astrophysicist who had never seen a total eclipse before, desperately wanted to see this one, and joined me.  She was so moved, she was crying, not at all an unusual emotion, and one that is captured on the video.  I want all first timers to see the eclipse.  Of course, I want to see it, but I’ve seen them before, a first timer has not.  Watching the awe on their face when they see what we’ve been discussing is truly remarkable.

The eclipse was my 12th total solar, and with Russia, was probably the toughest, most worrisome one we saw.  But we caught a break in Patagonia and had 2m40s of totality.  Were we lucky or what?

First trip:  11 July 91 to the Baja to see the 6 1/2 minute total solar eclipse.  We didn’t plan on seeing any others, but about a year later PBS had a special on that eclipse, and we both asked, “when and where is the next one?”  That’s a sign one is getting hooked!

Second trip:  3 November 94 to Sevaruyo, Bolivia.  We called that the trip where every other night we had a bed.  I was altitude sick for a day in La Paz, and then we took the train south to get into the track.  Most memorable moment (and remember, this is 1994):  the train stops in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night.  Somebody asks, “Where are we?”  Simultaneously, about 5 people say “18 degrees South 64 degrees west.”  Totally correct and completely useless!

Third trip:  24 October 95 to western India.  This eclipse was a guarantee on weather for days before.  We saw birds roost about 10 minutes before totality.  Because totality was so brief, we saw the chromosphere (the inner atmosphere) of the Sun for the whole time.  It was a lovely lavender.  I would put the shot on here, but my cable release broke prior and using my finger caused some blurring.  It may have been the prettiest I’ve seen.

Fourth trip: 9 March 97 to Siberia.  That is described elsewhere in this blog.

Fifth trip: 26 February 98 to Aruba.  We went to the south end of the island, where it started to rain.  We went back north and saw it in cloudy but adequate skies.  Had we stayed put, we would have been just fine.

Sixth trip: 21 June 01 to Zambia.  Jan had broken her humerus and had external pins in.  I could have been a nice husband and stayed home to help her.  Or I could have gone to the eclipse, which I did.  We saw totality about 50 miles north of Lusaka, the capital.  It was the only eclipse trip I was on where everybody in the group was silent.  That in of itself was probably the weirdest experience of all!

Seventh trip: 23 November 03 over Antarctica.  We flew to Punta Arenas  Chile, then took a couple of days to see Torres del Paine, a remarkable formation of climbable (not ever by me!) rocks.  We then took a Lan Chile flight with open cockpit (meaning you could look over the pilot’s shoulder, especially when he was taking pictures himself), getting totality somewhere around 73 degrees south latitude.  We then flew over the South Pole from an alititude of 2500 feet.  We came back over the Presidential range, flew around Vinson Massif twice and came back to Punta Arenas.  It was a 14 1/2 hour flight.  Next afternoon, we caught flights to Santiago, Lima, LAX and finally Tucson.

Torres del Paine:

Magellanic Penguin:

Antarctica Mountains:  The clarity of the air and the starkness of the shadows were remarkable.

Below is the South Pole station.  While we flew over (two passes), a C-130 cargo plane took off.  The contrail at the surface was incredible to see.   

Vinson Massif, highest mountain in Antarctica:

Eighth trip:  8 April 2005 to the South Pacific.  We flew to Tahiti, took a cruise by Pitcairn and Easter Islands, then ended in Callao/Lima.

This is right after totality.  The dark clouds are the departing Moon’s shadow.

The author, with Pitcairn Island in the background.  It was too rough to land.  We really lucked out with this eclipse, because a low pressure system suddenly strengthened to our south.  Meteorologist Jay Anderson had the captain move us further northeast along the track the night before.

This is Tongariki, where the Moai were ordered.  I found that and Anakena interesting, but the quarry was to me the real Easter Island (below).

Ninth trip:  29 March 06 in Libya.  We flew to Genoa, Italy and cruised to Naples, Syracuse, Alexandria, and landed at Tobruk, where we saw the eclipse inland.    As you can hear in the video, when totality occurred, a bunch of Libyans in cars came honking across the desert like a modern day Lawrence of Arabia.

Tenth trip:  1 August 08 in the high arctic, by air.  Unfortnately, our window was very icy, and our view was significantly degraded.  Efforts to try to find out why this occurred were totally stonewalled, which I think is unfortunate.  Still, we did see totality, and anybody who goes to Eliot Schechter’s web site will see a shot of totality taken from the plane at 36,000 feet (11,000 meters).

Here is our shot of the North Pole:

And proof of sorts:

Eleventh trip: 22 July 09, south of Shanghai China.  This is about as close to missing one without actually doing it.  After days of high humidity and record temperatures, a front sagged south on eclipse day.  We moved south, but alas, the front followed us, and while we had good views of the Sun 2 hours before, it clouded over until 2 minutes before totality.  Then we got this: Not impressive, but we did see the corona.  Because of the thick clouds and the length of this eclipse, we had a wide shadow and it got dark.  Really, really dark.  Eclipses normally drop the light to late twilight.  Not this one.  It was NIGHT!

11 July 2010:  See the related post on this one.  We were supposed to fly and then the plane got cancelled.  We got one clear day in the austral winter and got one great eclipse!