Chasing Totality

- Everen T. Brown

On August 21, a solar eclipse will return to the continental United States for the first time since 1979. A new generation of eclipse chasers will discover the magic of totality. My story begins much earlier.

As a child of the space race I followed man’s quest to land on the moon. Watching that story unfold, I developed an interest in astronomy. Viewing celestial occurrences became a highlight of my early years. Planets and comets (from Kohoutek to Halley’s) were viewed with some regularity, but a total solar eclipse was my Holy Grail. At age nine I saw a partial solar eclipse. It was nice – however in the world of the eclipse chasing elite, partials don’t count. You need to see and experience totality. It would be 22 years later before I saw my first total solar eclipse.

A total solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between the sun and Earth, and the moon completely blocks the sun. This happens only when the sun and the moon are in alignment. Since the moon’s orbit is tilted relative to the Earth’s orbit around the sun, its shadow at new moon usually misses Earth, making any eclipse – let alone a total one – a relatively rare event.

Most eclipses look pretty much the same – it is the destination that makes them more interesting. Over the next few decades since that first experience, I have managed to travel to all seven continents in search of totality.