Our favorite astronomy events from 2017

Happy New Year from Seattle Astronomy!
As 2018 gets under way we take a look back at our five favorite stories from last year.

1. Total Solar Eclipse

Well, duh. We spent nearly two years previewing the greatest celestial observing experience one can have. We did some 28 posts and more than a dozen podcasts about the Great American Eclipse. Seattle Astronomy publisher Greg Scheiderer even appeared on KING-TV’s New Day Northwest to talk eclipses.

To top all of that preparation off, we had gorgeously perfect weather for the eclipse from our viewing point in Monmouth, Oregon at Western Oregon University. Check our dispatches from Monmouth.

2. Apollo exhibit at Museum of Flight

To anyone who grew up obsessed with the race to the Moon in the 1960s, the Apollo exhibit that opened in May at the Museum of Flight is about the coolest thing there is after total solar eclipses. And it’s lasted more than two minutes! This is another event that came with great anticipation. Bezos Expeditions found some actual F-1 engines that rocketed Apollo missions into space. They fished them out of the Atlantic Ocean in 2013. Some were donated to the museum in 2015—a story that made our top-five list for that year!—and the exhibit was in the works for nearly a year and a half. While the engines are a commanding centerpiece of the exhibit, there’s a ton of other cool Apollo stuff there as well. Check our podcast previewing the exhibit and article about the opening.

3. Finding ET at Pacific Science Center

The Pacific Science Center had a couple of events during 2017 that highlighted the search for extraterrestrial life. The exhibit Mission: Find Life! ran from March through September in the science center’s Portal to Current Research space. Finding life was also the subject of one of the center’s Science in the City lectures in December. UW professor Erika Harnett participated in both, and Astronomy on Tap Seattle co-founder Brett Morris spoke at the latter as well. Check our podcast with Harnett and articles about the exhibit and the lecture.

4. Astronomy on Tap Seattle

Astronomy on Tap Seattle has been putting on monthly astronomy talks for almost three years now; they debuted in March of 2015. From Bad Jimmy’s to Hilliard’s to their current home at Peddler Brewing Company, graduate students in astronomy at the University of Washington put together monthly talks by students, faculty, and visiting dignitaries. The events also include astronomy trivia, prizes, and good beer. From astronomy art to polarimetry, we got a bit of everything this year.

5. Kelly Beatty talks Pluto

The Seattle Astronomical Society always lands great keynote speakers for its annual banquet in January, and 2017 was no exception as Sky & Telescope magazine senior editor Kelly Beatty told the story of the history of Pluto. Though Pluto wasn’t discovered until 1930, Beatty noted that the hunt really dates back to the 18th century.

Planning for the 2024 total solar eclipse

Last month’s total solar eclipse was the first one I had ever seen. Like many newly minted and experienced umbraphiles alike, I’m already thinking about the next total solar eclipse to cross the United States, which will happen on April 8, 2024. It seems like a long time off, but you don’t want to be like those folks who were frantically looking for eclipse glasses the day before the event!

As I ponder the last two years of planning for 2017, I realize that the advice received in the course of the enterprise was somewhat contradictory. In summary, when preparing for a total solar eclipse, one should plan carefully and well in advance, always have a plan B, and be ready to chuck it all and just wing it in the case of bad weather or other opportunities and circumstances.

Plan ahead

Fred Espenak
Photo: Greg Scheiderer

Our first tutorial in eclipse planning came from Mr. Eclipse himself, Fred Espenak, who spoke at the Seattle Astronomical Society banquet in January 2016. (Here’s our recap of that talk.) Espenak and his weather guru partner, Jay Anderson of Eclipsophile, scouted the entire path of totality for viewing and weather conditions. It was Espenak’s declaration of Madras, Oregon as having the best clear-sky prospects for eclipse day that drove thousands of people to central Oregon. My favorite remark from Espenak from that talk: “On eclipse day you don’t get climate, you get weather.”

Oregon had the best odds, many of us rolled the dice on that and came out winners.

Have a plan B

For many eclipse chasers plan B amounts to watching the weather forecast in the days and weeks leading up to the eclipse and, if things look dicey, going somewhere else. Many choose their preferred viewing site based on the ability to get away. That’s one reason that Espenak viewed last month’s eclipse from Casper, Wyoming: the weather prospects there were good, and major highways running east and west along the path of totality meant a good chance to run to find a break in any clouds that might move in. The Astronomical League held its annual convention there, too.

Seattle Astronomy’s Greg Scheiderer with Stephen O’Meara at
the Seattle Astronomical Society meeting Aug. 16, 2017.

The week before the eclipse Steven O’Meara, a columnist for Astronomy magazine and an avid eclipse chaser, gave a talk to the Seattle Astronomical Society. He recounted how, as a young child, his mother showed him little eclipses reflected through the holes in their home’s window blinds.

“Partial eclipses have been dear to me ever since I was a child,” O’Meara said. He noted that a thought struck him after a recent similar presentation.

“I realized how wonderful partial eclipses are and how much more fun I have at partial eclipses, because there’s no pressure,” O’Meara said. We think he actually thrives on the pressure though, and he told a number of entertaining stories about last-ditch efforts to beat the clouds and catch at least a glimpse of an elusive eclipse. Some of the more interesting ones involved Pop Tarts and essentially hijacking a boat in Indonesia when it appeared there would be no eclipse viewing on land. He may well be the king of plan B.

My own plan

Writing the Seattle Astronomy blog and producing our podcast was my research and planning for last month’s eclipse. I’ve done 27 posts (including this one) and did 15 podcasts about the eclipse, with the subject of many being the question of why one would choose Stapleton, Nebraska or Nashville for eclipse watching over the other places in the path of totality. I learned a lot about the activities each community had planned, and what else there was to do there once an eclipse was over. With all of that information, I ended up picking Salem, Oregon. I had three reasons: proximity, population, and weather.

Data by NASA/GSFC. Graph courtesy
Jay Anderson, Eclipsophile.com

Proximity. I reasoned that, if I lived in the Salem area, I probably would not have gone anywhere else. I’d have gone to a local park, or sat in my own back yard, to watch the eclipse. One short move may have been to get a little closer to the center line. With Salem just a four-hour drive from Seattle, this seemed a sensible option.

Population. At some point in my deliberations, I decided that I preferred a more urban setting to a rural one. It seemed that accommodations, the ability to get around, and access to stuff like food and a porta-potty might be more likely in a setting with more infrastructure.

Weather. Yes, many people would and did laugh about this. Walk up to anyone and tell them that you plan to watch a solar eclipse in western Oregon, and about 80 percent of them will immediately laugh and declare that, “It will rain.”

Looking at Anderson’s chart above of weather along the path of totality revealed a different story, however. While, statistically, the weather in Salem on August 21 of any year isn’t as good as that in Madras, it’s still pretty close, and a far sight better than just about any place east of Missouri. Salem seemed a good bet. When the date arrived and climate turned into weather, it helped that we were in the middle of the driest, clearest summer anyone can remember.

Chuck it

As I asked people along the path if accommodations were available in their town or city, most of them noted that hotels don’t even book for more than a year in advance. In fact, I heard several funny stories about innkeepers befuddled by someone wanting to book a room five years ahead of time! Naturally, when I went online to look for reservations in Salem 13 months prior to the eclipse, everything was completely sold out. Some time later I stumbled across an available motel room in Lebanon, Oregon and snapped up the reservation. I got tickets to OMSI’s eclipse event at the fairgrounds in Salem, and I was ready to go.

Back in December I published a post and podcast interviewing Elaine Cuyler of Orbit Oregon, publisher of the kids’ book The Big Eclipse. Cuyler, a former marketing director for Eola Hills Winery near Salem, was putting together the Wine Country Eclipse festival at the Polk County Fairgrounds. She invited me to speak at the festival, complete with gratis lodging in a residence hall at nearby Western Oregon University in Monmouth. It seemed like a no-brainer, and I jumped at the chance. I cancelled my motel reservation and gladly stayed in the dorms at WOU (pronounced “woo”, according to the staff.)

So, after about 20 months of planning, I ended up doing something that was only finalized about two or three weeks ahead of the eclipse. As noted in my post about eclipse weekend, it couldn’t have worked out better.

Total solar eclipse, 2024

Map courtesy Michael Zeiler, GreatAmericanEclipse.com

If this year’s was “The Great American Eclipse,” then some are already dubbing the 2024 event “The Great North American Eclipse.” As you can see from the map at left, this one will first hit land in Mexico, swoop up through Texas, cross the path of the 2017 eclipse in Carbondale, Illinois, and zip northeast until it crosses Maine and the maritime provinces of Canada. Thanks to Micheal Zeiler of GreatAmericanEclipse.com for the map; Zeiler was one of our interview subjects, too!

So, where will you be in April 2024? I’ve been looking at Jay Anderson’s weather maps already, and it seems the best weather prospects will be in Mexico, but I’m leaning toward Texas right now. I’d try to make hotel reservations, but nobody books more than a year in advance. And some cool opportunity might turn up at the last minute.

Solar eclipse dispatch from Monmouth--Totality!

My biggest concern about viewing today’s total solar eclipse was that, after doing 14 podcasts and at least 25 blog posts about the event over the last 19 months, it would be underwhelming.

Greg Scheiderer of Seattle Astronomy snapped a selfie while 

watching the eclipse from Western Oregon University.

Silly me.

I’ve seen Saturn hundreds—thousands?—of times, but I still do a little gasp whenever I get the planet into the field of view of my telescope. There it is! Crank that up about a thousand times, and that’s what I felt when I saw first contact of my very first total solar eclipse from “The Grove” at Western Oregon University in Monmouth, Oregon, and again when the diamond ring went away and the whole campus went dark as if a light switch had been thrown, revealing the Sun’s shimmering white corona for a glorious two minutes.

The intervening hour and 13 minutes (or so) between the onset of the eclipse and totality offered plenty of chances to observe interesting natural phenomena, tricks of light, and human behavior. The university had a number of semi-official viewing spots, on the football stadium and other athletic fields, mostly. But some hundred of us chose The Grove, with nice trees providing shade from the diminishing summer Sun, and also leaving easy access back into the lawn for a view of the progress of the eclipse.

My favorite eclipse watcher, or non-watcher, perhaps, was a young lad of seven or eight who kept stomping off from his family group muttering, “It’s not that impressive.” Some time into the eclipse another kid was heard informing the elders that he needed a bio break. Mom loudly exclaimed, in order to make the point emphatically, that you shouldn’t poop during an eclipse. She soon relented and escorted the kid to the loo, no doubt considering the consequences. Many of the kids in attendance—one of the weekend activities was a camp for children—seemed far more interested in play than in some dumb-ass sky thing the adults wanted to see. Where are the water-powered rockets when you need them?! Other kids were totally along for the ride, watching through their eclipse glasses or goggles and declaring, “It’s awesome.”

Mini eclipses project through oak leaves during the eclipse.

We saw the little mini eclipses projected through the gaps between oak leaves in The Grove. We noticed bright Venus popping out in splendor several minutes—an hour? Time moves at a different pace during an eclipse—before totality. It got considerably cooler. I kept looking west for a glimpse of the Moon’s shadow. I noticed that deep, twilight purple of dusk relatively high in the sky; was that the umbra, above us but not yet reaching ground? I’m not sure. Then—BAM! Just like that it was dark and there was that amazing corona. I’ve since seen social media posts from people who took photos, and the corona looks round in those images. I saw almost wing-like structure reaching out a couple of solar diameters on either side. The eye and the camera see very different things. As a total solar eclipse newbie, I took the advice of many: Don’t try to photograph totality; just watch and enjoy.

I was expecting to see more stars, but they didn’t really appear. I thought I saw Mars, just for a moment or two, but it was pretty close to the Sun, and it might have been a trick of the light. I couldn’t spot Mercury. I really just kept going back to the corona. I can see all of that other stuff most any time. I also didn’t catch any animal behavior. There are a few squirrels on campus, but I didn’t spot any of them going eclipse crazy.

Then, in what seemed like way less than the two minutes we were promised, the Sun came back out from the other side of the Moon. The glasses went back on, for most. Others began to pack up and head on their way. Said one kid: “Can we go play now.” But I can’t help thinking that the “It’s not that impressive” kid will wind up with a Ph.D. in astronomy. Old Sol works in mysterious ways. We stayed and watched as the Moon slowly slipped away, and in another hour the eclipse was really over.

The light and warmth came back and everything was as it was, even though everything had changed.

I will always remember this amazing natural spectacle, watched from a lawn at Western Oregon University.

I can’t wait for the next one, and already have a great plan for the eclipse of 2024.

Solar eclipse dispatch from Monmouth

Seattle Astronomy is in Monmouth, Oregon for the total solar eclipse. As of this writing, just after 1 p.m. on eclipse eve, the weather outlook is highly optimistic for eclipse viewing from Salem and environs. We noted that Cliff Mass named Salem number one in a Thursday article about eclipse weather, and stuck with that analysis in updates on Friday and Sunday.

We arrived in Monmouth at just after noon on Saturday, August 19, having set out from West Seattle at 8:04 a.m. after breakfast at Luna Park Café. Our goal: get to Salem ahead of the slackers, though it has been suggested that we actually ARE the slackers! Traffic problems were nil on Saturday morning. We took the I-205 route to avoid downtown Portland, and the only traffic delay we encountered on the trip south was a brief slowdown right near the PDX airport.

We’ve seen several reports of clear sailing on the highways from others headed into the path of totality, both here in the I-5 corridor and also in Eastern Oregon. It made us wonder if predictions of eclipse-ageddon traffic were merely ways to discourage the faint of heart from making the trip. This morning we’ve also seen reports that officials are now worried that previous light traffic means a super crush later today and on eclipse morning. We shall see; a big part of the job of “officials” is to worry, and we had some discussion of this in our blog and podcast with Jim Todd of OMSI last year. In any event, we’re here early and enjoying this college town.

We’re in Monmouth because we’re bunking at Western Oregon University. Greg is giving a talk about chasing the Sun at 3 p.m. today, Sunday, at the Wine Country Eclipse event. We’ll also be watching the eclipse there on Monday morning. Our original plan was to be at the OMSI event at Salem Fairgrounds until Orbit Oregon offered us the speaking gig at the festival.

A few local businesses are embracing the eclipse to a degree. Portland-based Breakside Brewery has created Path of Totality IPA, and several pubs in town are carrying the eclipse-themed brew. (We’ve been doing exhaustive research on this.) As we enjoyed a burger and a couple of pints over lunch at Main St. Pub & Eatery in downtown Monmouth, there was just a trickle of foot and vehicle traffic in mid-afternoon.

Monmouth would qualify as a small town at population just over ten thousand. We’ve seen no sign yet that the town and its infrastructure will be over-run with eclipse-watchers, though our wait at breakfast was a bit long this morning and many of the folks at J’s Café were wearing eclipse t-shirts of various designs, a sure mark of a tourist. We probably made the wait a bit longer for locals coming in for their Sunday breakfast! There are definitely more people around that there were on Saturday, but it’s hardly a crunch.

Even Monmouth City Hall is getting into the act; they’re not opening until 1 p.m. on Monday so that everyone can enjoy the eclipse.

We hope you do, too! Tell us about your eclipse destination in the comments!

We were on KING TV this morning talking solar eclipses

Seattle Astronomy‘s Greg Scheiderer was on the KING 5 television program New Day Northwest today for a segment about viewing solar eclipses! It was a fun time, and an enthusiastic studio audience had lots of questions after the recording. They just about had to drag me off in order to record the next segment!

Alas, fame is fleeting—they spelled my name wrong in the graphics on the program. That’s not what George M. Cohan (or maybe Oscar Wilde) suggested.

If you missed it, the video is at this link.

Solar eclipses and the stature of science

A total solar eclipse that crossed the American West in 1878 helped ignite a great boom in science in the United States. David Baron is hoping that, in an era in which people have to march in the streets in support of science, the total solar eclipse that will cross the nation next month will be similarly inspirational. Baron, a former science editor for National Public Radio, is the author of American Eclipse: A Nation’s Epic Race to Catch the Shadow of the Moon and Win the Glory of the World (Liveright, 2017). He spoke about the book last week at the Pacific Science Center, part of the center’s Science in the City lecture series.

Baron saw his first total solar eclipse from Aruba in 1998.

“I was just dumbfounded,” he said at the sight of the eclipse, which revealed stars in the daytime and Jupiter, Mercury, and Venus. “There, among the planets was this thing; this glorious, bewildering thing. It looked liked a wreath woven from silvery thread and it just hung out there in space, shimmering.”

It was the Sun’s corona, and Baron said the photos you’ve seen don’t do it justice. Soon, the eclipse was over.

“The world returned to normal, but I had changed,” Baron said. “That’s how I became an eclipse chaser.”

He said he decided that day, on the beach in Aruba, that he wanted to write a book about solar eclipses. He also figured 2017 would be the year to release it, with public interest in solar eclipses likely to be at its apex because of this year’s eclipse. So his book has been 19 years in the making. He said the work started in earnest about seven years ago, when he went researching for interesting eclipse stories to tell.

The American eclipse of 1878

Baron came upon a historical marker next to Battle Lake in the Wyoming Sierras, which claims that Thomas Edison came up with the idea to use bamboo as a filament for an electric light bulb while fishing at the lake in 1878. Baron found no evidence that this was actually true, but Edison was involved in eclipse watching in Wyoming that summer, for the total solar eclipse of July 29, 1878. The eclipse ran from Montana south down across the American frontier through Texas. At the time, Baron noted, Europeans were the clear leaders in eclipse science.

“Here was America’s chance to shine—or an opportunity to slip up and embarrass ourselves—but if all went well we would show the rest of the world what we were capable of as a scientific nation,” Baron said, “and so the eclipse was a big, national undertaking.” The eclipse and the expeditions to observe it received in-depth coverage in the newspapers.

Edison was among a group that went to Rawlins, Wyoming to view the eclipse. The group included Norman Lockyer, who had discovered helium on the Sun and founded the journal Nature; and James Craig Watson, an astronomer at the University of Michigan, who was in search of the hypothetical planet Vulcan that could explain orbital anomalies of Mercury.

Author David Baron spoke about his book
American Eclipse on July 19, 2017
at the Pacific Science Center.
(Photo: Greg Scheiderer)

Also out west was Maria Mitchell, professor and director of the Vassar College Observatory, who brought a group of Vassar students to Denver to show that women could do science, too. For Edison’s part, he was anxious to test an invention he called the tasimeter, intended to detect minuscule changes in temperature. Astronomers were interested in the device, which might reveal if the Sun’s corona gave off heat.

“These three main characters of mine had a lot on the line,” Baron said, and on the day of the eclipse they declared great success and the press was highly positive, though neither Edison, Watson, nor Mitchell really achieved their set goals.

“Maria Mitchell did help open the doors of science and higher education to women, but it’s not like male scientists suddenly embraced their female counterparts,” Baron noted. “It was the beginning of a long, hard, continuing struggle.”

Watson didn’t find Vulcan, of course; the precession of Mercury’s orbit was explained later through Einstein’s general relativity. Edison’s tasimeter never lived up to the hype. He did head home and start work on the light bulb, though not in the way the Historical Landmark Commission of Wyoming would have you believe.

“The eclipse of 1878 did not illuminate America in the way the historical marker claims,” Baron said. “However it did enlighten America, helping to push this upstart nation toward what it soon would become—the undeniable global superpower in science, a country that would, in this intellectual realm, eclipse the world.”

Learning from history

Baron sees an interesting parallel with next month’s total solar eclipse.

“Once again the Moon’s shadow will visit us at an interesting time in our intellectual development,” he noted. “Today the issue isn’t whether America can rise up and take on the world in science, the question is whether America can maintain its global lead.”

It will undoubtedly be the most widely viewed total solar eclipse in human history. We’ll see whether it has the power to change hearts, minds, and the course of history.

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You can purchase American Eclipse though the link above or by clicking the image of the book cover. Purchases made through links on Seattle Astronomy support our ability to bring you interesting astronomy stories. Thank you!

Do not miss this! Tyler Nordgren and solar eclipses

Tyler Nordgren wants to make sure that what happened to him as a nine-year-old astronomy nut doesn’t happen to you this summer.

Tyler Nordgren reads an excerpt from his book Sun Moon
Earth during a presentation January 14, 2017 at Town
Hall Seattle. Photo: Greg Scheiderer.

Nordgren, a professor of physics at the University of Redlands and author of Sun Moon Earth: The History of Solar Eclipses From Omens of Doom to Einstein and Exoplanets (Basic Books, 2016), talked at Town Hall Seattle earlier this month about the book and his work to educate the public about the total solar eclipse that will cross the United States on August 21, 2017.

As a kid Nordgren was passionate about astronomy and already knew he wanted to be an astronaut. He was living in Portland, Oregon in 1979 when a total solar eclipse passed right over his house.

“Because of the news warning us about looking at the Sun, I was sure that if I accidentally looked at the Sun during the eclipse, there were these special rays that would come out and burn my eyes,” he recalled. “So I hid in the house with the curtains drawn and I watched it on TV.”

He could tell the eclipse was happening because the house got really dark, but that was his one and only take-away from the event.

“One of the things that has driven me to work on this and to help promote this eclipse that is coming up this year is I don’t want to see another nine-year-old child out there having the experience that I did!” Nordgren said.

Good things come to those who wait

“It took me twenty years to eventually, finally see (a total solar eclipse) for myself,” Nordgren noted. He described what it’s like, the things that happen approaching and during totality, but said that he had an unexpected reaction to that first totality.

“As an astronomer, I know the mechanics of the celestial alignment, yet in this moment of totality, I fully understand the difference between knowledge and feeling,” he said. “When I finally, after 20 years, got a chance to see this for myself as a professional astronomer south of Budapest in Hungary in 1999, I swear the hair stood up on the back of my neck. It still remains the most amazing thing I have ever seen in the sky.”

“I could understand why generations of human beings would cower in fear at this,” he added, “and wonder, ‘When is the life-giving Sun going to come back?’”

Eclipse science

Nordgren described some of the stories different cultures cooked up to explain eclipses, and also discussed some of the science done during eclipses, including the determination, from spectra, that the Sun was largely made of hydrogen and contained some iron. Helium was discovered on the Sun 25 years before it was found on Earth. Perhaps the most famous science made possible by an eclipse was the determination that mass can indeed bend light waves, as predicted by Einstein’s theory of general relativity and measured during a solar eclipse in 1919. The media coverage turned Einstein from an obscure physicist into an icon.

“This is what made Einstein Einstein in the popular culture,” Nordgren said.

Do not miss this!

This August’s total solar eclipse will be the first to cross the United States from coast to coast since 1918. Nordgren, also an artist, has designed travel posters for many of the spots along the path of totality, and shared them as he talked about the path the eclipse will take. You can see, and buy, them on his website.

He pointed out that virtually everyone in the country will be able to see some degree of partial solar eclipse, but he urged us all not to settle and stay home just because there might be traffic.
“Do not miss this!” Nordgren urged.

“The difference between being inside and outside that path of totality is literally the difference between night and day,” he noted. “Inside totality, the sky goes black, the Sun turns dark, the stars come out, the corona is visible. Outside totality, yeah, it kinda gets sorta dark. Yeah, use your glasses. Yeah, there’s a bite taken out of the Sun. But it will pale in comparison to what you experience—not just what you see, but what you feel inside that path of totality.”

Nordgren said a good solar eclipse may be just the thing that we need.

“In difficult times, when, heaven knows, there have been lots of things that do not unite us, here is going to be a moment in which we are all united under the shadow of the Moon, and we will all be seeing this together,” he said. “This will become the most photographed, the most Tweeted, the most Instagrammed, the most shared group moment in the history of the world.”
“That’s what we have to look forward to this summer,” he concluded.

Total solar eclipse 2017 in Music City

You can’t blame people in Nashville for being excited about the total solar eclipse that will darken the city on August 21, 2017.

“The last time the path of totality crossed through town Nashville wasn’t even a thing!” laughed Derrick Rohl, manager of the Sudekum Planetarium at the Adventure Science Center in Nashville. Indeed, the last total solar eclipse there happened on July 29, 1478.

“It’s a big deal for us,” Rohl said.

Rohl’s big role in the planetarium’s preparation for the eclipse has been the creation of an exciting new show about eclipses. Titled Eclipse: The Sun Revealed, it has been in the works for more than a year. It starts off with a look at the ways people have responded to total solar eclipses over time.

“It gives people a great look at different cultural histories, ways that different cultures have interpreted eclipses and just how they would react,” Rohl said. Eclipse lore is filled with serpents and dragons and other scary creatures eating the Sun. The show also explores the geometry of eclipses so viewers will better understand what’s happening, and takes a look back at the interesting science that has been accomplished during total solar eclipses.

Of course, it also has the obligatory lessons about how to safely view the eclipse, and Rohl says they stress that during totality, it’s OK to look up without eye protection.

“It’s one of the greatest views that nature has for us and we would hate to have anyone miss that,” Rohl said.

The show closes out with a story about someone seeing a recent eclipse, “so that people can get an idea of just what a profound, impactful experience it will be,” Rohl said.

Eclipse: The Sun Revealed will premiere next weekend, January 21, exactly seven months before the total solar eclipse will hit town. Rohl said they’ve also sold it to planetariums in four other states and others are expressing interest.

Speaking of eye safety, that’s been a big investment for the Adventure Science Center, which ordered some 300,000 pairs of eclipse glasses.

“We have pallets and pallets of eclipse glasses sitting out on a loading dock now,” Rohl laughed. The glasses are earmarked for the city’s school kids, science center visitors, hotels, the convention and visitors bureau, and others. Center staff are helping teachers with lesson plans about eclipses, and are helping everyone from city officials to park rangers and bus drivers learn about the eclipse. That’s for good reason; Rohl says they’ve heard estimates that as many as two million visitors may hit Nashville for the eclipse.

Bracing for visitors

“We’re trying to prepare as many people around town as we can to be experts,” he said. “We’re trying to connect as many people as we can just to make sure that this a smooth experience for the huge amount of people that will be here to share it with us.”

In addition to the planetarium show, they’re planning an eclipse festival for the weekend before August 21. While many of the events remain tentative at this date, the festival will likely include lots of information about the eclipse, and Rohl expects it will also touch on virtual reality, robotics, and other cool topics.

“We’re not just limiting it to astronomy; we’re really expanding it to all the different science that we’d like to have people exploring and understanding and appreciating,” he said.

Other attractions of Nashville

One of the reasons that visitor estimates are so high in Nashville is that Music City is already a great tourist draw.

“Nashville is such a tourist friendly city even without an eclipse happening,” Rohl said. “While there are many other cities within the path, Nashville is a very very enticing place for people to choose.”

He expects folks from as far away as Chicago might rise in the wee hours and make the trip to Nashville for the eclipse, noting that practically everyone in the U.S. is within a day’s drive of the path of totality. While it’s a tourist town, Rohl says many Music City hotels have been booked for a long time. He’s got a spare room in his house, but it’s still up in the air who gets it.

“I think a lot of people who live in Nashville might be having long-lost relatives coming out of the woodwork,” Rohl laughed.

There are a couple of other space and astronomy attractions in the region besides the eclipse and the Adventure Science Center. Rohl suggested a visit to the Dyer Observatory, operated by Vanderbilt University in Brentwood, Tennessee, just a bit south of Nashville; and the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, which is just a couple of hours drive to the south.

Total eclipse mania

Rohl noted that the buzz is certainly building about the eclipse. He fields several calls each day already, and expects it will only increase. Social media is helping to spread the word, something we didn’t have the last time a total solar eclipse crossed our entire country, back in 1918.

“The hype around this one really makes it so that everyone is expecting it to be the biggest astronomical event ever to happen in the United States,” Rohl said. “It’s something really exciting to look forward to, and of course Nashville is a mighty convenient place to live with that coming.”

Trailer for the planetarium show Eclipse: The Sun Revealed:

Book review: Sun Moon Earth by Tyler Nordgren

Tyler Nordgren’s new book Sun Moon Earth: The History of Solar Eclipses from Omens of Doom to Einstein and Exoplanets (Basic Books, 2016) is a must read for anyone with even the slightest interest in the heavens, or in the total solar eclipse that will sweep across the United States on August 21, 2017. It’s far more than a where-to-go and how-to-see-it tale, although those pointers do show up at the end (don’t stare at the partially eclipsed Sun without proper, certified shielding, folks.) The fun part is the history lesson suggested by the subtitle.

Indeed, total solar eclipses have been happening for millennia, and Nordgren travels the world to examine what ancient cultures made of this unusual phenomenon. The complete blotting out of the Sun was seldom considered a good thing by people who didn’t understand what was really going on. It has only been in very recent times that the total solar eclipse has been embraced as a tourist attraction. Nordgren’s explanations of how scientific thinking developed and helped explain what was happening during eclipses are engaging and fascinating, as are his tales of the science that has only been possible during these rare events.

Nordgren has become an eclipse chaser himself, and I enjoyed his accounts of his travels to view eclipses, especially his trip to the relatively remote Faroe Islands, between Scotland, Iceland, and Norway, for the eclipse of March 20, 2015. The islands are not exactly the world’s leading tourism destination, and yet they were on that day because it was one of the few dry-land locations from which to see that particular eclipse. It was an interesting tale of the lengths to which people will go to get into the path of totality of a solar eclipse, and how the communities within that path prepare and react to the event.

Most people seem to agree that next year’s total solar eclipse will be seen by more people than any other in history. Often times the path of totality mostly passes over water, as it did for the Faroe Islands in 2015. The last time a total solar eclipse crossed the U.S. like this was in June of 1918. The 2017 eclipse will cross a huge land mass with a large population, many opportunities for tourists, and easy access to the path of totality all along the way.

Sun Moon Earth is a delightful read and would be a most welcome gift for anyone on your list with an interest in astronomy. We included it in our recent gift guide for astronomy buffs.

Author Nordgren is a renaissance man of sorts. He’s a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Redlands. He’s also a photographer and an artist and has done a variety of beautiful travel posters for the eclipse as well as for other tourist spots around the solar system. They’re available on his website and also referenced in our gift guide. He’s done a great deal of work on night sky astronomy programs in National Parks. He’s the author of Stars Above, Earth Below: A Guide to Astronomy in the National Parks (Praxis, 2010) and spoke about the topic at the 2014 annual banquet of the Seattle Astronomical Society. He’ll be in town again to talk about Sun Moon Earth January 14 at Town Hall Seattle. Tickets are $5 and are available online.

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Reaching kids with "The Big Eclipse"

Those who are convinced that the stars do not affect our lives might wish to consider the story of Elaine Cuyler. Up until recently, Cuyler was minding her own business and working as marketing manager for Eola Hills Wine Cellars just west of Salem, Oregon.

“I never dreamed I’d be working on a kids’ book, let along one on eclipses,” Cuyler said. But that’s exactly what happened. When she learned that the total solar eclipse on August 21, 2017 will cross right over the vineyard, she decided an eclipse-viewing event would be a great way to attract visitors to the winery. As she researched the eclipse, it occurred to Cuyler that kids would really enjoy viewing a total solar eclipse.

“There was really no-one else talking to kids about the eclipse at the time,” she said. Out of that realization Orbit Oregon was born, and Cuyler became its chief eclipse officer. She teamed up with Nancy Coffelt, a well-known author and illustrator from Oregon, to create the book The Big Eclipse (Orbit Oregon, 2016).

“Although I had this concept in mind, it’s really Nancy’s drawings that brought it to life,” Cuyler noted. They also created a kids’ activity book; you can read our review of both, posted last month. Cuyler said there are a couple of purposes behind The Big Eclipse.

“First, I thought it was a great opportunity for kids to learn about astronomy and science and see something really cool,” she said. Secondly, she noted that adults often don’t know what’s going on, either. Her mother was a teacher in Portland during the 1979 total solar eclipse; they were told not to look up, and broadcasters ran public service announcements warning of the dangers of looking at the Sun. While it’s true that proper eye protection is needed to look at the partial phase of a solar eclipse, the warnings amounted to a missed opportunity.

“The concept of a solar eclipse is something that a lot of people aren’t familiar with,” Cuyler said. “That’s why there’s a lot of information [in the book] for parents, too, because they need to learn about it just as much as the kids.”

Providing inspiration

Ultimately, though, it all comes back to the kids.

“We felt that as soon as you can get kids interested in science the better,” Cuyler explained. “Maybe they’re not going to want to sit and listen to a lecture, but they do like crafts, they all know about the Sun, the Moon, and the stars. To get kids thinking about the world around them and how it functions, that’s really the start of getting them to think about why the world works the way it does, and you use science to explain that.”

As Cuyler and Coffelt worked on The Big Eclipse their research included talks with astronomers and folks from NASA who looked at their material. They also spoke with many people who had seen total solar eclipses, including one couple who had viewed 15 of them.

Seattle Astronomy writer Greg Scheiderer, Orbit Oregon’s Elaine
Cuyler, and The Big Eclipse. We thought it was fun to get a
selfie in front of a sign that reads “Choose your own adventure.”

“Their feedback was so great because they shared photos with us and video footage, they told us about the different things that happen,” Cuyler said. “Talking with people who’d actually been through these was invaluable.”

They’ve already test-driven the book in school classrooms, and the kids seem to enjoy it, especially the part where they get to create and make a drawing of their own eclipse myths, just as ancient civilizations tried to explain this celestial phenomenon. Cuyler said the kids are creative and funny with their stories. Her own eclipse myth is a little more figurative.

“It would probably be the book completely eclipsing everything else in my life!” she laughed.

It’s a lot of work getting a book out there. The Big Eclipse is available on the Orbit Oregon website (which also features eclipse glasses and viewers) and Amazon.com, and it is being carried by a growing number of retailers. Cuyler is busy trying to get it into libraries, museums, schools, and summer reading programs, too.

What’s next?

As for the future of Orbit Oregon, Cuyler said The Big Eclipse is really all about the 2017 total solar eclipse, so the book sort of expires after next August 21. But she and Coffelt are considering other books, including volumes about solar eclipses in general, astronomy, and other science topics.

“We had so much fun doing this and we met so many great people that we may extend that,” Cuyler said. “Right now, we’re just focused on the eclipse.”

And on the kids. Cuyler hopes The Big Eclipse gets kids, especially girls, interested in science. When you mix in art and literature, you can grab their interest early.

“If you’re looking at science from an art perspective and crafts activities you can really start young,” Cuyler said. “It appeals to kids, and they’re learning while they’re enjoying the little story that they’re reading.”

Out of that story, and out of seeing a total solar eclipse, can come inspiration. They’ve heard many tales of science teachers who started on their career path when they saw an eclipse as a child.

“That’s what we’re going after, those young kids that might be inspired,” Cuyler said. “That’s really our mission, is to get kids to understand what they’re seeing, learn from it, and then be awed by this amazing spectacle.”

“Hopefully a new generation of science teachers will come out of it.”

Resources:

• Orbit Oregon website
• The Big Eclipse shop
• The Big Eclipse on Facebook
• The Big Eclipse on Twitter

Purchases made through links on Seattle Astronomy support our efforts to bring you interesting space and astronomy stories, and we thank you.

Book review: Chasing Venus

Like many astronomy buffs, we’ve been putting a great deal of thought into deciding where we’ll go to try to see the total solar eclipse that will cross the United States next August 21. Seattle Astronomy has done 13 articles and a dozen podcasts on the topic. As with the 2012 Venus Transit or this year’s Mercury Transit, the key is figuring out where you’ll have the best odds for clear skies, and how to get to an alternate site if the clouds beat those odds on eclipse day.

With such thinking fresh in mind, I eagerly snapped up a copy of Andrea Wulf’s book Chasing Venus: The Race to Measure the Heavens (Vintage Books, 2012) when I spotted it in the astronomy section of Powell’s Books during a recent trip to Portland.

Chasing Venus is the story of the Venus transits of 1761 and 1769, and the international scientific effort to accurately observe the transit from many spots around the globe and use the solar parallax between those observations to calculate the distance between the Sun and the Earth, and thus get a true grasp for the size of the solar system.

The whole project was the brainchild of British astronomer Edmund Halley, who predicted the 1761 transit and wrote an essay in 1716 that urged scientists to spread out across the globe to make these vital observations. Halley was 60 at the time of the writing and would have to live to be 104 to see it himself; he died in 1742.

Scientists and nations answered the call with enthusiasm. This was, Wulf writes, “a century in which science was worshipped, and myth at last conquered by rational thought.” One is tempted to think that we’ve regressed in the intervening 247 years.

Technology was a challenge for the observers. They had good telescopes, but had to transport them long distances, in many cases, and set up observatories in remote locations. A bigger challenge was the actual timing of the transit. Clocks were not yet reliably accurate, and precise determination of longitude was still a challenge. The greater difficulty was actually getting to the observation sites. It was easy for those in the cities, but for the calculations to work observations had to be made from points on Earth as far apart as possible. Thus for every astronomer observing from the relative comfort of Paris, London, or Madrid another team was on a treacherous expedition to the far-flung corners of the world in an era when it took several months to get a letter from the American colonies to the European capitals. For the 1761 transit, the journey of French astronomer Jean-Baptiste Chappe d’Auteroche to Siberia was particularly harrowing, and those traveling by sea had to navigate not only the sea but the politics of the day, lest their efforts be defeated by heavy waters or hostile navies.

Imagine the mindset of astronomers who, at great expense, had to travel for months, and in many cases more than a year, in order to set up and prepare for an event that, if it was cloudy during the wrong six hours, would be a total bust. It makes our deliberations about where to go to see the 2017 total solar eclipse seem trivial by comparison.

Measurements of the first transit proved largely unsuccessful. Weather foiled many of the expeditions, and a variety of problems caused great variance in the accuracy of the data collected. But they learned from the effort and improved their approaches, and by the time of the 1769 transit, the combined observations narrowed down the distance to the Sun to within four million miles, which was quite an improvement.

Wulf spins a great tale of scientific inquiry, daring (and not-so-daring) adventurers, political intrigue, and fascinating personalities involved in what was arguably the biggest collaborative international scientific event up to that time. It’s a marvelous read and highly recommended.

Special cookies and two books about next year's total solar eclipse

I’ve recently read two fantastic books about the total solar eclipse that will sweep across the United States on August 21, 2017. One is geared toward kids, while the other could be a useful tool for serious adult eclipse chasers.

The Big Eclipse (Orbit Oregon, 2016), written and illustrated by Nancy Coffelt, is a beautifully done 16-page book that children will love and easily understand. It’s a lighthearted and playful eclipse primer that explains what will happen and how to watch it safely, looks at odd effects of eclipses, shows how to make a pinhole projector, and has a glossary with meanings for all of those new words like totality and umbraphile. While aimed at children the book is not dumbed down, and it’s certified “astronomically accurate” by an eclipse expert at the American Astronomical Society.

Sold separately is The Big Eclipse Activity Book that supplements The Big Eclipse. It is packed with games, puzzles, art and imagination projects, and even has a recipe for “eclipse cookies” that you can make and serve at your total eclipse viewing party. It would be great for school projects, family fun and learning, or just for a kid who loves to read and figure things out solo. Grab both volumes; they’re perfect for kids around ages five to eleven.

We did an earlier article and podcast with Michael Zeiler, who along with his wife Polly White operates the dandy eclipse website GreatAmericanEclipse.com. Zeiler also has come out with a book, a compact 44-pager titled simply See the Great American Eclipse of August 21, 2017 (Great American Eclipse LLC, 2016). The book is packed with maps and information, touching on the splendor and science of the event, safe viewing, best places to see the eclipse, strategies for success, and lots more maps. It’s super informative, and small enough to slip into your satchel or even a larger pocket and head out for some eclipse chasing.
As discussed in the podcast, Zeiler works hard to make his maps not only accurate and informative but visually pleasing. He dose marvelous work, and he has a selection of poster-size maps suitable for framing on the website.

Safety tools are included with both books. The Big Eclipse comes with a rectangular solar viewer, while a copy of See the Great American Eclipse will also get you a couple of pairs of eclipse glasses.

You can snag all three books by visiting the links above. Buying through Seattle Astronomy helps us defray the costs of bringing you great space and astronomy articles, and we thank you for that.
There’s more info and additional eclipse swag on the websites for Orbit Oregon and The Great American Eclipse.

Mapping the 2017 total solar eclipse with Michael Zeiler

If you’ve been thinking about where to go to see the total solar eclipse that will cross the United States on August 21, 2017, you have more than likely come across the work of Michael Zeiler. Zeiler is the proprietor of the website Great American Eclipse.com. He has been an astronomy nut and eclipse chaser for many years, but just started making solar eclipse maps a few years ago.
Zeiler saw his first total solar eclipse from Baja, California in 1991 and was smitten.

Michael Zeiler is the proprietor of the websites
GreatAmericanEclipse.com and Eclipse-Maps.com.
Photo: Eclipse-Maps.com

“It just was an amazing experience to see the eclipse hanging high in the sky with the blackest black you could see where the Moon is, and the shimmering corona, the most beautiful object in the sky that you never see in your life except for the few precious moments of totality,” Zeiler said.

“I was hooked from that point on,” he added.

Zeiler has used Fred Espenak’s eclipse maps ever since. In fact, back in 1991 he’d just purchased Espenak’s book Fifty Year Canon of Solar Eclipses, and noted the date of the 2017 eclipse 26 years in advance!

Making eclipse maps

Zeiler practically fell into the business of making eclipse maps back in 2009. He booked passage on a ship for a total solar eclipse in the Pacific Ocean in July of that year. The cruise advertised that it would sail to the point of greatest eclipse. He found that Espenak’s map didn’t have a key piece of information that he needed to know if that was true.

“For a land-based eclipse, it’s straightforward, because you see the road network, you see the cities and the roads and the other geographic features so that you can place yourself on the map,” Zeiler said. “But for an eclipse at sea, there’s no real geographic reference around you, so if you have a GPS receiver, what you really need is lines of latitude and longitude drawn on the map.”

Zeiler, who works for the geographic information system software company Esri, decided to create it himself.

“I had the interest and the skill set so I made my own maps for this cruise,” he said. “I made a large map, laminated it, brought it on board the ship, taped it on one of the walls, and over a thousand eclipse chasers were on that cruise. That map was a smash hit.”

People encouraged him to make more, so he launched the website Eclipse-Maps.com late in 2009. The site became pretty popular. On May 20, 2012, the date of an annular solar eclipse visible from the American southwest, the site had a quarter million unique visitors and one million page views.

“I was stunned by that,” Zeiler said. “I didn’t expect that kind of response.”

It was at that moment that it struck him that the 2017 total solar eclipse was going to be huge. He snagged the URL GreatAmericanEclipse.com the very next day, launched the site, and has been working on it ever since.

“We constantly get emails or phone calls from people who are just jazzed about the eclipse and excited and wanting to learn more,” Zeiler said. “It’s a real thrill to participate in that.”

Vintage eclipse maps

Zeiler is a collector of vintage solar eclipse maps, and has images of some of them on the Eclipse-Maps website. His favorite era for eclipse mapping is the early 18th century, when the maps were not only gorgeous but amazingly accurate.

Casper, Wyoming eclipse map courtesy
GreatAmericanEclipse.com

“One of my key goals in making eclipse maps is to bring the artistry back into eclipse cartography, so I intentionally try and make the maps expressive, communicative, and just beautiful things to look at,” he said.

The man who has mapped the entirety of the 2017 total solar eclipse is headed to Casper, Wyoming as the starting point for his eclipse chase next summer. Zeiler said he considers three factors in making that decision: weather, mobility, and duration of the eclipse. He said the climate in Casper is good, and there are highways running east and west of town that pretty much hug the eclipse center line.

“All experienced eclipse chasers that I know are headed west for the weather, and we’re sacrificing ten or twenty seconds of maximum eclipse to get the great weather odds,” he said. The Astronomical League has chosen Casper for its annual conference in August for the same reasons. Catch our previous article and podcast about eclipse viewing in Casper.

Get eclipse stuff

GreatAmericanEclipse.com includes tons of information, maps, and a history of solar eclipses, plus a great selection of eclipse swag. You can buy your eclipse glasses there. Zeiler has also written a 44-page book, See the Great American Eclipse of August 21, 2017, that aims to answer all the questions people might have about the eclipse. The book includes two pairs of eclipse glasses.

Zeiler does it all with excitement about sharing the eclipse with people.
“This will be the most fantastic astronomy event in decades for this country,” he said. “It’s going to create a new generation of people that appreciate the beauty and the majesty and the science of our universe, and many people will become newly formed eclipse chasers.”



Resources

• Great American Eclipse website
• Eclipse Maps website
• Fred Espenak’s eclipse website
• Jay Anderson’s eclipse weather website

Total solar eclipse 2017: Salem, Oregon

This is the tenth article Seattle Astronomy has done to preview possible places from which to view the total solar eclipse that will cross the United States next August 21. We’ve talked with folks from Madras, Oregon to Columbia, South Carolina and points in between. It’s time to look at the closest viewpoint for Seattle eclipse chasers: The Salem Fairgrounds in Salem, Oregon are just 219 miles from Seattle Astronomy world headquarters, and will be the site of an eclipse viewing party headed by the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI.)

Good viewing in Oregon

“Oregon is really advertised as the best place to view the eclipse, and we’re expecting ten million visitors to come down to Oregon for that one-day event,” said Jim Todd, director of space science education at OMSI. “Oregon needs to be ready.”

That latter is something of an understatement. Todd says they expect about ten thousand people to attend the OMSI-sponsored party at the fairgrounds, an event that has support from Rose City Astronomers in Portland, the Oregon Observatory, and NASA, among others. The party will feature science lectures, astronomy-related community groups, and entertainment, including a performance by the Portland Taiko drum ensemble.

Salem is a bit north of the center line of totality, which crosses I-5 about halfway between Oregon’s capitol city and Albany. But the total eclipse will last nearly two minutes at the fairgrounds, and Todd said there will be numerous other viewing points in and near the city, including at Willamette University and Volcano Stadium in Keiser, where the Salem-Keiser Volcanoes baseball team, a class-A affiliate of the San Francisco Giants, are planning a Monday morning baseball game for next August 21 that may feature the first “eclipse delay” in the history of organized ball.

“It goes without saying: we can’t do this alone,” Todd said. “We just have to educate the public and make sure they understand what’s involved with the eclipse.”

Western Oregon eclipse map courtesy GreatAmerican Eclipse.com.

They’re doing that through planetarium shows, workshops, and social media to get the word out, especially about about safe viewing of the eclipse during its partial phase. They’ve also been in touch with government officials from the Oregon governor’s office on down to make sure they’re thinking ahead for eclipse day. With huge crowds expected, things could get chaotic, especially if there are clouds around and people have to scramble to find a clear sky for the moment of the eclipse.

“It will likely be hot, it will likely be crazy as far as traffic jams. Airports, hotels, you name it,” Todd warns. “It’s going to be a crazy day. It’s going to be one of those days people are going to remember where they were on that very day when they were looking for the eclipse.”

Rural options

Todd also serves as a co-director of the annual Oregon Star Party, which has set its 2017 event for the days before, of, and after the eclipse.

“We plan to do viewing from Indian Trail Spring in the Ochoco Mountains,” he noted. The site is somewhat south of the center line of the path of totality, and will enjoy about a minute and 27 seconds of total solar eclipse.

One concern about eclipse day is that many people will simply head for similar remote areas and gridlock roads there.

Jim Todd. Photo: LinkedIn.

Todd has seen one other total solar eclipse, that back in 1979. He was a senior in high school and had to wrangle his way around official authority to do it.

“My science teacher was going to keep the class inside,” he recalls with a laugh. He got permission to head to Goldendale, Washington with another family, where they escaped cloudy Portland skies—it was February—and saw the eclipse. Next year may be a bit easier.

“Fortunately for us [the eclipse is] going to be in August, when we have a great chance of clear skies,” Todd noted.

The job fits

Todd is a true space nut. Like many of us, his interest was cemented when he watched Apollo 11 land on the Moon. He taught himself space science and astronomy, then took an internship at OMSI. He never left; he’s been there 33 years.

“It’s been my way of getting close to NASA by getting close to all of the astronomical events,” he said. “It’s one of the very few jobs where the hobby has actually become the job. I was able to combine my passion with astronomy and space science with the teaching and computers and so on. It was a perfect fit.”

Portland is an astronomy city. Rose City Astronomers is one of the biggest clubs in the country. Proximity to pretty good dark, transparent skies may be one reason for that.

“Portland has a science-minded audience and they love these kind of events,” Todd said. “We like to think, too, that OMSI had a role in that.”

Tickets to the eclipse party at Salem Fairgrounds are $8 and are available now through the OMSI website.

Total solar eclipse 2017: Columbia, SC

Of all the places along the path of the total solar eclipse that will cross the United States next August, Columbia, South Carolina has some of the most interesting attractions for astronomy buffs. Beyond the spectacle of the eclipse itself, the South Carolina State Museum has a new planetarium due to a recent expansion, in addition to an observatory with a vintage telescope and a 4-D theater. Its exhibits also include telescopes and other artifacts from the collection of Robert B. Ariail, a University of South Carolina alumnus and longtime amateur astronomer and collector who donated his holdings of some 5,000 books and several hundred telescopes to the university and the museum.

“We have a really wonderful collection of antique instruments—six thousand square feet of historic telescopes—which I think will be great for some of that audience who will come to see this type of thing,” said Tom Falvey, director of education at the museum, which has declared itself solar eclipse headquarters for the August 21, 2017 event. Falvey said Ariail was particularly interested in American-made scopes, and the collection includes 11 Alvan Clark instruments and a couple of Henry Fitz telescopes, one of which dates to 1849 and is believed to be the oldest surviving American instrument made specifically for use in an observatory.

“It’s just a beautiful collection of American instruments totaling 26 telescopes,” Falvey said. In addition, the exhibit has a number of European scopes, including some by John Dollond, early Gregorian reflectors, and some rare Zeiss instruments.

“It’s a great collection, beautifully displayed,” Falvey said. “I think it would be really nice for folks who come with that specific type of interest.”

The museum is planning several days of events leading up to the eclipse, which is on a Monday. They’ll hold a Saturday-night gala, with a guest lecturer or entertainment not yet determined. They’ll be doing tours of the telescope collection and staying open late every day leading up to the eclipse.
“Being open late for us means we would have the observatory open every night; an opportunity for people to look through the big 12-inch Clark telescope and get excited by doing some observing beforehand,” Falvey said. The observatory’s telescope is a 1925 Clark instrument with Zeiss glass that was originally made for Columbia University. Ariail helped bring it to the museum back in the 1990s.

The museum is also the focal point of efforts to prepare others to see the eclipse, and has been working with city officials urging them to create city-wide events next August.

“Plans are truly under way for the next steps for the city to do something all-out to make sure that when folks come here they’ll really see how much fun the city can be and how many great resources we have and the types of things you can do here,” Falvey said.

South Carolina eclipse map courtesy GreatAmericanEclipse.com

He notes that Columbia has some beautiful downtown areas, thanks in part to a recent boom. He adds that it’s a great place if you like sun and heat, and that South Carolina barbecue can’t be beat. Finally, Falvey says that the people in Columbia are marvelous—and he says that as a New England transplant.

Nobody really knows how many visitors to expect, though Falvey thinks the city can handle the crowds. It has a fairgrounds and the University of South Carolina football stadium, which are right next to each other and can hold a lot of eclipse chasers. Columbia is the capitol city of South Carolina and has ample accommodations. Freeways can bring people into town from all directions, or help them get out if the weather turns bad on eclipse day.

That could be a bit of a problem. Columbia often experiences late-afternoon thunderstorms in the summer—the total eclipse will begin at about 2:43 p.m. there. The hour presents another challenge: school will have started in town, and that’s about when elementary students would typically be on the bus going home.

“(That) could be a real problem and a real shame if people were to miss a total eclipse,” Falvey said. “We are encouraging school districts to extend the school day so that teachers will be able to assist with all the viewing.”

South Carolina is that last state the total eclipse will touch before moving out east into the Atlantic Ocean. It could be a great choice, especially for folks on the east coast.


Brief SCSM video about the Clark telescope: