eclipse_review_001214
Beyond the wonder of witnessing coincidences of our local celestial mechanics, eclipses are highly personal events. Viewers are awed by the experience and recall indescribable marvel at watching the sky go dark.
Viewers tend to remember well the associated biographical and emotional details, whatever inspired or challenged them to stand in the right place at the right time to catch the event. It's almost like remembering where you were when you heard Kennedy or Cobain was dead or the shuttle Challenger exploded.
An entire subculture swarms around these events, chartering boats, planes and buses to race to get under the path of the eclipse and pray for the weather to clear. Talk to any astronomy professor and you're likely to meet someone who plans vacations around tracking eclipses, auroras, comets and meteor showers. But for most, harried schedules prevent us from making the time to see an eclipse, especially a solar eclipse.
This year, the shadow of a partial solar eclipse will trace across North America on Christmas Day, providing a serene midday alternative for regular folks to the annual frenzy of worshipping, unwrapping or dodging the trappings of this holiday. Talk about one for the scrapbook.
David Levy's Eclipse: Voyage to Darkness and Light reads exactly like that kind of a personal scrapbook, launching with a touching memory of his first total solar eclipse -- experienced at the age of 11 as the result of a series of lucky breaks. Stricken with acute asthma, Levy was confined in a Colorado sanatorium. His parents pled for Levy's one-week leave to watch the eclipse in Quebec. In an unusual move, the institution granted his wish since they'd seen Levy poring over science documents for months. Then came the eclipse drama that recurs for most watchers. The family was in position at the appointed hour, only to crane their necks for a view of clouds. A heartfelt prayer -- nearly a command to nature or God -- from Levy's father, seemingly effectuated a parting of the clouds just in time for Levy to catch a brief glimpse of the 1963 event. Levy went on to become a well-known astronomer who co-discovered the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet which struck Jupiter in 1994. But he was hooked on eclipses from various childhood unveilings and since went on to witness some 54 lunar and solar eclipses.
Levy's compact book chronicles the highlights of that lifelong obsession, culminating in a boat tour through the north Atlantic Ocean off Nova Scotia to chase the August 1999 solar eclipse. During the voyage Levy was lucky enough to witness a solar eclipse with his wife, Wendee and her siblings: Patsy Tombaugh -- widow of Pluto's discoverer Clyde Tombaugh -- and meteorologist Joe Rao, along with other astronomically inclined soul mates. Despite perfect weather and a lack of turbulent seas, the Regal Empress's steam voyage into the eclipse's path involved some last-minute drama and decisions that turned out to be crucial for a successful trip. It's not quite the Shackleton survival saga, but one learns that stalking and witnessing eclipses doesn't happen by accident.
The book includes mercifully simple and direct explanations of lunar and solar eclipses and their cycles. It also includes boiled-down reference material on upcoming eclipses through 2020 and careful directions on how to view a solar eclipse (looking directly at a solar eclipse can cause permanent blindness). But you hardly need to digest all that to enjoy the wonder of eclipses that Levy conveys well.
The book inspires one to follow his directions and hunt down number 14 welder's glasses to view the Dec. 25 event directly. Alternatives are a pinhole camera or standing under a tree to see crescent Suns projected on the ground by spaces between the leaves.
Get out there on the lawn on Christmas Day. Regardless of your orientation to God on this day, weather willing, you'll long remember the eclipse of Christmas 2000.
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