In 2017, over 200 million Americans witnessed the spectacular total eclipse of the Sun, and the 2024 eclipse is expected to draw even larger crowds. In anticipation of this upcoming event, this book takes us back in history over 150 years, telling the story of the nation’s first ever eclipse chasers.
Our tale follows the chaotic journeys of scientists and amateur astronomers as they trekked across the western United States to view the rare phenomenon of a total solar eclipse. The fascinating story centers on the expeditions of the 1869 total eclipse, which took place during the turbulent age of the chimerical Planet Vulcan and Civil War Reconstruction.
The protagonists—a motley crew featuring astronomical giants like Simon Newcomb and pioneering female astronomers like Maria Mitchell—were met with unanticipated dangers, mission-threatening accidents, and eccentric characters only the West could produce. Theirs is a story of astronomical proportions. Along theway, we will make several stops across the booming US railroad network, traveling from viewing sites as familiar as Des Moines, Iowa, to ones as distant and strange as newly acquired Alaska.
From equipment failures and botched preparations to quicksand and apocalyptic ‘comets’, welcome to the wild, western world of solar eclipses.
Table of Content
Chapter 1. Introduction: “The Rush of this Black Wing of Night”.- Chapter 2. A TRANS-AMERICAN ECLIPSE.- Chapter 3. SOME LIGHT UPON THIS DARK SUBJECT.- Chapter 4. NAVY ASTRONOMERS 2, 000 KILOMETERS ASHORE.- Chapter 5. THE VAST BLACK ORB.- Chapter 6. NEW ASTRONOMY IN THE OLD WEST.- Chapter 7. OBSERVING IN STYLE.- Chapter 8. MEETING OF THE GRAYHAIRS.- Chapter 9. Overhanging Monster Wings:” The Philadelphia Photographic Corp.- Chapter 10. SURVEYING A SOLAR ECLIPSE.- Chapter 11. The Canadians: Toques on the Frontier.- Chapter 12. Chasing the Umbra through Time and Space.- Chapter 13. A DARKNESS THAT CAN BE FELT.- Chapter 14. STANDING OF THE EDGE LOOKING UP.- Chapter 15. VULCAN.- Chapter 16. AMERICANS IN TOTALITY.- Chapter 17. IN THE SHADOW OF BENJAMIN BANNEKER and “EVEN THOUGHTLESS WOMEN AND CHILDREN HUSH . . .”.- Chapter 18. FIRE CLOUD.- Chapter 19. WHAT DID IT ALL MEAN?.- Chapter 20. . . . AND WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THAT?.
About the author
Thomas Hockey received his undergraduate degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and earned a Ph D as New Mexico State University’s first-ever graduate in Astronomy and the History of Astronomy. He is the author or editor of ten books, including the award-winning Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers (Springer).
Hockey is a veteran of eight total solar eclipses. He lives between the past and future: His house is on the path of 1869’s rare, transcontinental, total eclipse, and he looks forward to taking his students to the path of the similar solar eclipse of 2024.
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