ECLIPSE

An Original Publication of ibooks, inc.

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Frontispiece: The August 11, 1999 solar eclipse enters totality, as seen from the Atlantic Ocean, 217 miles southeast of Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Photo: Roy Bishop

An ibooks, inc. Book

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Cover design by Mike Rivilis

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In writing a book about a total eclipse of the Sun, I must first thank the Sun, the Moon, and the Earth for arranging themselves so precisely as to allow this event to take place at all. Unheard of and unseen anywhere else in the solar system, total solar eclipses, where Moon covers Sun and only the Sun, are unique to Earth and are quite probably rare throughout the Universe. We are extraordinarily lucky.

On human terms, I begin by thanking my wife Wendee, who revitalized my interest in eclipses. After the almost seven minutes of totality in Mexico in 1991, I thought I had seen every possible thing during a total eclipse, and I didn’t care if I never saw another. But then came the annular eclipse of 1994. I observed with Clyde and Patsy Tombaugh in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and Wendee, then teaching physical education a few miles away, developed a program during which her young charges could watch the eclipse in safety. Afterwards, when she asked me what the difference between an annular eclipse and a total eclipse, I began to explain how, in the eclipse she saw, the Moon did not appear large enough to cover the Sun, and that in a total eclipse. . . . Suddenly I realized that the only way to answer her question was that we both had to see a total eclipse. We saw the eclipse of February 26, 1998, which to me was more amazing than any other, and we were hooked. Wendee’s family also had a great deal to contribute to the success of the 1999 voyage and the book that followed it. Her parents, Leonard and Annette, her sisters Gail and Joan-ellen, and her brother Sandy, all enjoyed this, their first eclipse–except for Annette, who saw the 1925 eclipse from New York City.

On the Regal Empress, Ann Burgess of North Star Cruises did a superb job organizing the cruise and encouraging Regal Cruises to sail into the path as expertly as they did. Joe Rao and Sam Storch, two of the lecturers, provided important background. Captain Peter Schaab and his crew did a magnificent job building the experience that made this book a possibility. On the editorial side, my editor, Howard Zimmerman, and publisher Byron Preiss, came up with the idea for this book and helped it through to completion with enthusiasm and finesse. I also thank Art Boehm for his editorial suggestions.

Finally, thanks to Roy and Gertrude Bishop, and Leo Enright and Denise Sabatini, and Patsy Tombaugh. They shared this voyage at the same time they cemented our special bond of friendship.