Last night I was watching the PBS Nova show on the Great American Eclipse, taking place next Monday. (I have been watching Nova for over 40 years.) There are many other great sources for learning about the eclipse, such as this one from Astronomy Magazine. The Nova show made me think I should do a quick post on eclipses and the IGY.
Here is a briefer summary from National Geographic of what happens during a solar eclipse:
My editor and I are headed off to Columbus, Indiana, to see the eclipse, weather permitting. This will be my third total eclipse experience. My first was in March 7, 1970. I was driving down from college with a roomie to see it in Virginia, when I rear ended the car in front of me, and was towed to the car hospital. But we did get to see the eclipse from there! Then seven years ago (eclipses follow various rhythms, including a recurrence after seven years), I went to Casper Wyoming to see the eclipse of Aug. 21, 2017.
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| Cover from the 2017 eclipse in Casper, Wyoming. Stamp is Scott 5211, when the fingertip heat is applied to the thermochromic ink, the thermochromic ink disappears, revealing the photo of the Moon underneath. Cachet by KSC. |
People had all kinds of ways of observing this event:
Solar studies were a major component of the IGY. In fact, the IGY was scheduled to be at a time of solar maximum, and when eclipses would occur. The U.S. IGY stamp as well as a number of IGY cover cachets illustrate solar activity.
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| First Day cover for U.S. IGY stamp (Scott 1107) showing solar activity, with a hand-painted solar cachet by B. Kraft. Cover US120 in my collection. |
In a previous post about the IGY calendar, I noted that these eclipses were noted as special days of observation on the IGY calendar.
Most calendar years have two solar eclipses. And, there were three solar eclipses during the 18-month long IGY:
Oct. 23, 1957 - total
April 19, 1958 - annular
Oct. 12, 1958 - total
Plans for observing the last one, which provided better geography for observing than the other total eclipse, are described in the IGY Bulletin, number 12, June, 1958, p. 1-6. Walter Sullivan discusses the eclipse observations in his great book on the IGY, Assault on the Unknown, McGraw-Hill, 1961, Chapter 11, Eclipse, pp. 182-188. I may say more about these articles in my next post, but I need to finish packing.
Why travel 10 hours to see a total eclipse, when I could see a 90% eclipse here in Lancaster? You can experience so much more during totality. This xkcd cartoon illustrates the difference:
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| xkcd 2914. "A partial eclipse is like a cool sunset. A total eclipse is like someone broke the sky." |
I am taking my eclipse glasses to watch the eclipse develop outside of the 4 minutes of totality, so be sure you also view the sun safely! Never look at the sun directly except when it totally eclipsed.