A solar spectacle
Excitement never fades for retired engineer who travels the world for celestial events
Whether it’s your 17th total solar eclipse, like Bill Kramer, or just your first, we’ve got ways to watch in the Bay Area.
Editor’s note: On Monday at around 10:15 a.m. PDT, parts of the contiguous U.S. will fall in the path of a total eclipse of the sun for the first time since 1979. For many, it will be their first and perhaps only chance to witness the rare occasion when the paths of moon and sun are in alignment and the new moon covers the view of the sun from certain parts of Earth. But not for Bill Kramer. The retired computer engineer will log his 17th total solar eclipse Monday and his 26th solar eclipse overall. He’s been fascinated with them since he was barely a teenager. Here is his story.
I’m what you call an “eclipse chaser.”
It’s a self-appointed title, one shared by people like me, people who spend all their vacation time and travel money to observe these indescribable phenomena. On an eclipse website I run, I host a log that allows people to record how many of these events they’ve seen. The top chaser on the site has witnessed 33 total eclipses to date.
Why do we do it? For most of us, it is something of an obsession. Each time is familiar yet new, and always breathtaking. There’s almost a religious epiphany that occurs. It’s like the eye of God looking down on you.
Because of that, I don’t have a favorite eclipse among the many I’ve seen. All of them are different, and all of them are great.
The day before and again the morning of an eclipse, I spend the time in nervous anticipation that something could go wrong. Every cloud I see could be an advance scout for an army of them coming over the horizon. Wind changes are a big deal. Small alterations in humidity are noted. Should we move? Should we set up here? Will it be clear?
In the moments before first contact — the point when the moon touches the solar disk for the first time — my anticipation grows. Then comes that first little dark edge across the sun. That little bite confirms that all the calculations made of time and place are right. Relief.
Slowly the moon covers the last of the bright sun and the light falls off quickly. Sunset colors fall across any clouds that may be in the sky. If you are looking in the right direction and have a great view, you might even see the moon’s shadow racing across the land toward you. Or you might see shadow bands moving across a flat area, vaporous ghosts making the light shiver around them.
And then the eclipse goes total. It’s dark, yet not pitchblack. The horizon glows. Bright stars appear. The sky takes on a deep blue color. And where the sun once shone is a black circle surrounded by a shiny white corona — the circle of solar gases. It’s a magical eye floating in the sky. Streamers of light extend like glowing hairs. Time seems to flip into hyperdrive. But before you know it, the eclipse is ending.
The finale is the best part. It lasts just a few seconds. The solar disk peeks out. The light from that one speck of sunlight quickly overwhelms the corona, an effect known as the diamond ring.
While every eclipse shares these features, a serious eclipse chaser can look at a photograph of any one he or she has seen and say, for example, “Oh yeah, that’s from the 1983 eclipse in Indonesia.” How do they know? Well, because each corona is different from every other.
Most chasers will tell you their first eclipse was the best. I was in elementary school when I got involved with the local astronomy club at Youngstown State University. In 1970, some members came back from observing an eclipse on the East Coast and talked about what a great experience they’d had. The director of the university planetarium said he would organize a cruise to intercept the next total eclipse in 1972, when I would be 13 years old. I begged my parents, and they agreed we would go.
My parents and I watched that eclipse in middle of the North Atlantic. The next year, we went to Western Africa to see one. We didn’t see another until 1980.
I was lucky in my profession, using my computer science and engineering degrees to start my own business in 1985. That gave me flexibility, and whenever it was economically feasible, I’d go to see the next eclipse. When my wife and I were first getting serious, she found a book at my place — a NASA publication of upcoming eclipses, with a sticker on the front reading “Bill’s travel guide.” Fortunately, she was eager to travel along.
So we kept chasing eclipses, and when we had kids, we dragged them along. On Monday, our grandson, born just in November, will be with us to see this eclipse. So the eclipsechasing Kramers are now a four-generation tradition.
Over more than four decades, I’ve witnessed eclipses in four of the seven continents — Asia and Europe along with North America and Africa.
Still, I’ve missed a few. Sometimes it’s a question of weather — or common sense. In 2015, there was an eclipse in March visible from Svalbard, a frozen archipelago near the North Pole. I skipped that one.
Amazingly, I’ve never been clouded out and unable to see an eclipse. Germany in 1999 was the closest I’ve come, but it’s never actually happened. (Knock wood.)
Eclipses create unique communities, bringing together professional astronomers and amateur chasers like me. There’s a lot of cooperation and citizen science. On Monday, the Citizen CATE experiment will collect video recordings of the eclipse from people across the U.S., so scientists can watch about two hours of inner corona dynamics. We also meet at conferences. There, a grad student might ask a chaser like me to try to photograph a particular aspect of a coming eclipse. The amateur can send in the pictures and get a mention in a scientific paper.
This eclipse, though, will be more about fun than science, an event I’ll share with just friends and family. But my preparation has been methodical. Two years ago, my wife and I drove the predicted eclipse path all the way from Wyoming to Kentucky to determine the optimum viewing location. Our chosen spot: just north of Nashville.
Of course, if the weather doesn’t look very good the night before (I’ll use satellite data to check), we’ll hit the road to find a better spot.
I’m looking forward to this one in particular because many in our group have never seen an eclipse. It’s always gratifying to hear their reactions immediately after the sun goes dark. “It’s nothing like you described,” they often say.
Well, yeah, but how does one adequately describe an eclipse? After 45 years of chasing them around the globe, I still haven’t really found the words.
The best I can do is answer what is often the next question, the question I love the most: “When’s the next one?!”
Over more than four decades, I’ve witnessed eclipses in four of the seven continents. Bill Kramer