10 - Eclipses

Summary

Now eclipses are elusive and provoking things … visiting the same locality only once in centuries. Consequently, it will not do to sit down quietly at home and wait for one to come, but a person must be up and doing and on the chase.

Rebecca R. Joslin, Chasing Eclipses: The Total Eclipses of 1905, 1912, 1925, Walton Advertising and Printing, 1929

Chasing eclipses

The proverb that lightning never strikes twice in the same place is, in fact, false. The proverb is truer of an eclipse. It has been calculated that, on average, a total eclipse of the Sun can be seen from the same spot only once every 410 years. So, if you really want to see one, you must take Rebecca Joslin's advice and go '… on the chase'. If you set your heart on seeing one, sooner or later, you will see an eclipse; and you may find, as many have before you, that no sooner have you seen it, than you start planning to see the next one. Part of the attraction is that solar eclipses don't occur very often. On average there is one every 18 months. But, even if they were more common, people would still go out of their way to see them: they are spectacular events, arguably the most breathtaking that the sky has to offer.