Chasing eclipses a way of life for some
WASHINGTON » While Monday’s total solar eclipse in the U.S. will be a once-ina-lifetime sky show for millions, there’s a small group of people who have experienced it all before and they can’t get enough of it.
Glenn Schneider has seen 33. Fred Espenak has watched 28. Donald Liebenberg has logged 26. For newbie Kate Russo, it’s 10 and counting.
These veteran eclipse chasers spend lots of money and craft intricate plans all to experience another midday darkening of the sky. Many work in science and related fields and they’ll travel around the world, even to Antarctica, to see one more.
“I do this not so much as an avocation, but as an addiction,” said Schneider, a University of Arizona astronomy professor.
Russo, a psychologist in Ireland who wrote a book about people’s eclipse experiences, said some people find the experience life-changing. That happened to her.
“Eclipse chasing isn’t just a hobby or interest,” Russo wrote in an email from Wyoming, where she traveled to see Monday’s eclipse. “Eclipse chasing is a way of life. It becomes who you are.”
Monday’s eclipse will cut a 70-mile-wide path of totality across the country, when the moon moves between Earth and the sun, blocking it for as long as 2 ½ minutes. It’s the first coast-to-coast full eclipse since 1918. Many of the big eclipse chasers are planning to be in Oregon or Wyoming because there’s a better chance of clear weather there in August. They’ll be ready to drive hundreds of miles if need be to find good weather.
Total solar eclipses happen on average every 18 months or so, but they usually aren’t near easy-to-drive highways. Norma Liebenberg has been to a dozen, mostly joining her avid eclipse watcher husband, Donald, in remote places such as Libya, Zambia and Western China.
“It’s sort of mind-boggling that there are 1,000 people out in these isolated places to see it,” she said. She even forgave her husband when he missed their first anniversary to go to a clouded- out eclipse in the South Pacific.
Eclipse chasers said their first always hooks them.
Schneider, who got a telescope at age 5, planned out his first eclipse precisely. He was 14 in 1970 and he traveled from New York City to East Carolina University’s stadium. He had choreographed how he was going to spend the 2 minutes 53 seconds of darkness. Then came the moment.
“I was frozen in place,” he recalled. “I had binoculars around my neck for 2 ½ minutes and I never picked them up.”
When it was over “I was shaking. I was crying. I was overwhelmed,” he said. “It was at that instant when I said ‘ Yeah, this is what I’m going to do with the rest of my life’.”
Now Schneider takes his grown daughter with him to eclipses. And he invented what he calls the “lug- oscope,” a telescope that folds into its own luggage to make his eclipse chasing easier.
“Flexibility is probably No. 1,” Schneider said. “Keeping your options and open and be ready to take that option if that’s what’s needed.”
Donald Liebenberg has seen and blogged about his 26 eclipses for Clemson University, where he does research. He holds the record for most time in totality because the retired federal scientist used to view them by airplane whenever possible. In 1973, he convinced the French to let him use the supersonic Concorde for eclipse viewing and he flew at twice the speed of sound. He got 74 minutes of eclipse time in that one flight.
After spending more than 60 years flying around the world, this time the Liebenbergs are only going as far as their driveway.
This eclipse is coming directly to them in South Carolina.