Eclipse! The What, Where, When, Why & How Guide to Watching Solar & Lunar Eclipses Book

At one point, Eclipse! takes time off from its primary task--a detailed technical guide to observing and recording eclipses around the globe--to tell the monitory tale of the pupils of a school in Baltimore, Maryland. On eclipse day May 1994, these eager and inquisitive children were not only kept in by their teachers during the event (owing to "legal considerations"); they were not even allowed near the windows! Of course, on the list of Things That Are Bound to Ruin Your Eclipse, other people's idiocy comes quite low. Top contenders for 1999 in the southwest of England are cloud and bad traffic. For those of us disappointed on the day, our tempers will only fray further the more we are told by lazy journalists that this was "our only chance to see an eclipse". This is of course a nonsense. Eclipses happen all over the world at reasonably frequent intervals and over the next few years they will be visible from many exciting locations. (Harare, 2001, anyone?) Philip Harrington's handsomely illustrated technical manual (none of your poorly-reproduced NASA Web site maps, here) is both a resource for experienced eclipse chasers and an excellent introduction for those bitten by the bug on August 11, 1999. As one observer says: "No matter how much totality you've seen, it's never enough. Nicotine, alcohol, gambling, any conventional addiction you can think of; umbral dependence is worse." --Simon IngsRead More