Earlier this month (April 8, 2024), a total solar eclipse cut through Mexico, the United States, and Canada. Total solar eclipses are paramount spectacles. It’s unlikely you will see anything else in your short, pointless life that will match a total eclipse. Thus, whenever an eclipse passes nearby, you should endeavor to place yourself in the moon’s shadow and bathe in its awesomeness. So, I am ashamed to confess that I missed April’s totality. Oh, I did observe a partial in my Idaho backyard (we were well off the path of totality), and even partials are fine sights in solar binoculars. On eclipse day, two large sunspots were visible in my solar binoculars. I dutifully noted them with a sketch in my Stellar Register. Like many amateur astronomers, I maintain an observer’s log.
While updating my notes, I read my log entry for my first total solar eclipse. My first total was special, even by elevated total eclipse standards. It was the first total of the 21st century. I date the start of the 21st century from this eclipse. Here’s my slightly edited log entry. Pictures from this eclipse trip can be seen by clicking here.
- Date: June 21, 2001
- Site: Zambian schoolyard 89.9 km from Ndeke Hotel
- Time: 12:00 — 4:00 pm local
- GPS Waypoint: ZECLIP
- South Latitude: 14.86177 (degrees)
- East Longitude: 27.70558 (degrees)
- Elevation: 1158 meters
The eclipse was perfect! I have a feeling I could see the next hundred eclipses and not top today.
To begin, the weather was perfect. We left the Ndeke Hotel at 8:00 am. Before leaving, I looked around the sky for clouds, but none could be seen. The sky remained absolutely clear all day. Better eclipse weather could not have been catered. The bus ride to the schoolyard Civilized Adventures had arranged for us was long and dusty. We took the “great northern road” out of Lusaka. About 60 kilometers north of Lusaka, we turned onto a dusty, unpaved road. For the next 2 ½ hours, the bus slowly crept the remaining 40 kilometers to the school. All this effort bought us about twenty seconds of totality. The eclipse was visible from the Lusaka hotel grounds, and until I saw totality, I wondered if this ride was worth it.
It was!
We arrived shortly before noon. School kids and their teachers carried their desks out of the school and set them up under a large tree for our lunch. We quickly ate lunch and then waited for about one hour. At 1:39:52, the moon touched the sun’s disk. I counted down the seconds on my GPS, then looked up through my pane of welding glass and saw the moon’s disk cut into the sun.
The moon steadily advanced over the sun’s disk for the next hour and twenty minutes. The quality of the light slowly changed. A soft white evening light filled the soccer field as most of the sun’s disk disappeared. People held up their interlaced fingers and cast crescents on the ground. Some people poked holes in white cardboard sheets and projected crescent letters on sheets and t-shirts. ZAMBIA 2001 was a favorite.
As totality approached, Mali and I stood together with others on the soccer field and watched the sun disappear behind the moon with our eclipse glasses. At totality, people started yelling. I ripped off my eclipse glasses and looked up as the last brilliant spike of sunlight was swallowed up. In its dying flash, a brilliant ring of light with a huge flare zipped over the sun. People cried, “The diamond ring.” It did look like a diamond ring. On the ground, we saw the famous “shadow band” ripples of light. Then, the glare was instantly gone, leaving a perfect black hole in the sky surrounded by the purest white corona.
Through binoculars, totality was awesome. The corona was streaming away from the sun, and brilliant red prominences could be seen on the sun’s edge. Roughly in this pattern:
Looking around the sky, which was as dark as twilight, I could see three objects: Jupiter, Sirius, and Saturn to the east. There was a sunset glow low on all horizons. Mali started yelling about the prominences and handed me her binoculars. I took a quick look and passed them back to her. For the rest of totality, we both stared through our binoculars until the lower edge of the sun started to flare.
When the sun’s edge broke free of the moon, I turned away and looked at the crowd. It is amazing how bright the smallest sliver of the sun’s disk is. When just a dot of the sun returned, it was instantly daylight again, a weird blue dim daylight but still daylight. I couldn’t believe that over three minutes had passed. They were the shortest three minutes of my life.
Two words about total solar eclipses: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
Also, 20 on a scale of 10! Three thumbs up! Really better than sex!
Analyze the Data not the Drivel 