on the road with Doveed
Two magic minutes worth the trip
By DAVID H. LEVY
Sky’s Up Editor in Chief
What happened on August 21, late in the summer
of 2017, was breathtaking, incredible, and
incomprehensible. An eclipse of the sun is actually
very simple — a cosmic coincidence during which
the Moon passes in front of the Sun. Because
Wendee and I were in the path of totality, we saw a
total eclipse, which is a lot more than science, and
which is not so simple.
We left Tucson on August 19th, traveling by
airplane to Los Angeles and thence to Redmond in
Oregon. We arrived in Madras a few hours later,
and over the course of the next day joined with
several of our friends who had agreed to make a
similar trip. The eclipse began promptly at 09:07
a.m. on the 21st. As the Moon took its first tentative
bite out of the Sun, the eclipse appeared to be as
simple as described; as more and more of the sun
was covered by the moon the temperature began to
drop, slowly at first, and then more precipitously.
And with less sunlight, shadows of buildings, trees,
and people became sharper. But still the eclipse was
a simple event—until totality came.
As the shadow of the Moon approached us, the
solar crescent became a thin line of light. As the
light began to thin even further, it broke into a
multitude of points. Bailey’s Beads! First described
by Francis Baily at the annular eclipse of May
15, 1836, these tiny beads of sunlight peering
through valleys at the edge of the Moon, precede
and follow totality. Within a second or two those
beads vanished, all but one. At that one moment,
the Diamond Ring, the simplicity of the eclipse
utterly transformed itself into a complex symphony
of magic, beauty, romance, emotion and wonder.
The corona, the Sun’s atmosphere, stretched several
solar diameters out into space; actually it reaches
Earth.
Two minutes later the shadow left us and continued
its journey across the United States. Thousands
upon thousands of other people would get to see
much the same thing we did in the next couple of
hours.
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COURTESY OF David H. Levy
This image, taken near the middle of totality, reveals the inner corona
showing a prominence.
Does this seem like an awful lot of travel for just
two magic minutes? Was it worth it? Absolutely,
you bet! To stand in the shadow of the Moon,
witnessing the onset of darkness in the middle of
the day is an experience I shall never forget as
long as I live. Nor will all the people who traveled
to share the experience with us. Ika Hackett, who
had traveled with her family from Canada, set up a
white sheet in hopes of catching the shadow bands.
This effect, which takes place in the seconds just
before and after totality, is very difficult to see.
Sadly, she told me that she had failed to see them.
“I did see a faint rolling effect of light and darkness
that lasted for a few seconds.”
“Ika!” I answered her. “You saw the shadow bands.
that’s what they often look like!” The play of light
and shadow is very subtle indeed. At only one other
eclipse did Wendee and I see better shadow bands.
Instead of a small white sheet to cross over, the
play of light and shadow had an almost unlimited
expense of Antarctic ice to play with. At the eclipse
of November 2003 in Antarctica, we saw 12
minutes of shadow bands. This time we didn’t have
to travel to the ends of the Earth to see them.
The following day we had to wait several hours
for our long delayed flight back home. But it didn’t
matter. We had been witness to one of the most
spectacular events nature can provide – a total
eclipse of the Sun.
Sky ’ s
Up
A partnership written in the stars
By WENDEE WALLACH-LEVY
Guest Contributor
No matter what I chose to do in life I was always the
organizer.
As a physical education teacher and coach, I organized
all the in class tournaments, the intramural activities in my
schools as well as the after school activities. My days were
long, and my weekends non-existent as they were filled with
school sporting events. On the occasional weekend when
no school events were planned, I did volunteer work for our
local American Red Cross Chapter. There, I organized the
annual Learn to Swim programs in the city of Las Cruces,
N.M. Before I retired from teaching I was the chair of the
local Health and Safety Services Committee. As if I didn’t
have enough to do I moonlighted for New Mexico State
University at the Weekend College on Sunday afternoons.
Without going into great detail about each area I organized I
viewed the rare free weekend as a vacation.
I used to wonder, after all the organizing I did during my
26 year teaching career, what it would be like to organize
a famous person. (This was way before I had met David).
Needless to say, when David and I eventually did get
together I was ready to keep his life organized but totally
unprepared for what I thought would be a fairly simple
transition.
When it became obvious that I was going to formally retire
from teaching and move out to Tucson and co-habitate
with David, this is how I broke down our tasks. I began by
confiding to David that I knew comparatively little about
astronomy, but did know enough to see through a situation/
problem and intuitively know what needed to be done. Then
I objectively looked at our strengths and naively said these
words: You are a wonderful astronomer, lecturer and writer,
I will take care of everything else. (What was I thinking?)
At first David disagreed. He knew how hard I worked in Las
Cruces and he wanted to take care of me and let me just relax
and enjoy the ride. That didn’t last long. By the end of our
first week, I took over the bill paying and the shopping, and
21 years later I am back to doing what I originally suggested.
For those of you familiar with the Rocky movies, especially
Rocky 1, this needs no explanation. One of the strengths of
our marriage is that our strengths are so different, there is no
comp