Sky and Telescope - August 2018 - 4

SPECTRUM

by Peter Tyson

The People's Eclipse

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TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSES CAN BE privileged affairs. Only those with

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AUGUST 2 018 * SK Y & TELESCOPE

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SE A N WA LK ER / S&T

the means could observe the 2016 eclipse that swept across Indonesia and the Central Paciﬁc - unless they lived there - or the 2015
eclipse that swung up the North Atlantic between Greenland and
continental Europe. The same will hold true for the next three total
solar eclipses, in 2019, 2020, and 2021, which for viewing will require being on
a ship in far southern seas; on remote land in Chile, Argentina, or Antarctica;
or on a dedicated eclipse ﬂight (arguably the most exclusive of all).
But last summer's Great American Eclipse was for everyone. Yes, it was only
visible in the United States, but no matter where you found yourself in the
country that day you could enjoy at least a partial eclipse. As Alex Young notes
in his article on science conducted during and after the eclipse (page 14), tens
of millions witnessed totality and perhaps 100 million saw a partial. That puts
it in the running as the most-watched eclipse in history.
But it was more than that. Its accessibility enabled
everyday people to participate in science to a degree unprecedented during an eclipse.
Citizen science ranged across the board that summer day. More than 10,000 volunteers contributed to the
GLOBE Observer program, using a custom smartphone app
Totality as seen from
to take photos and record weather data during the event.
Glendo, Wyoming
As part of NASA's Eclipse Ballooning Project, 55 teams of
on August 21, 2017
high-school and college students released weather balloons
that captured the ﬁrst-ever live video footage of an eclipse - from 100,000 feet.
For the Citizen CATE effort, crews operating more than 60 telescope rigs along
the path of totality shot images of the Sun's corona for an upcoming "movie"
of the corona's evolution. Two other groups monitored how the eclipse altered
radio transmissions. (See more details on all these endeavors in Young's article.)
Some amateurs conducted their own experiments. Don Bruns successfully
reprised Arthur Eddington's historic test of relativity during the 1919 total
solar eclipse (page 22). Don's narrative includes a sidebar by his twin brother
Ron, who investigated whether the sky close to the totally eclipsed Sun became,
as Edmund Halley had claimed way back in 1715, bluer. See also Fred Myers's
nostalgic temperature study (page 84), a repeat of measurements he'd taken 45
years before during an eclipse on Prince Edward Island.
All in all, the dazzle of August 21, 2017, was as ecumenical an eclipse as one
could imagine. It probably got more people in this country to "look up" than
any other astronomical event in American history. From
that perspective, the one in 2024 can't come soon enough.

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Sky and Telescope - August 2018

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