We wanted to give you a bit of history, so here's the text of a newspaper article from the last eclipse to sweep over the entire Continental U.S. - in June of 1918! (Note that nowadays, we have airplanes to chase the shadow instead of trains.  What will our descendants think of this "ancient" technology?!

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TRAINS TO RACE ECLIPSE SHADOW

 

Locomotive headlights turned on at midday to light trains across Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming and Colorado.

 

That’s one of the freakish things the total sun eclipse will bring about on June 8, its line of totality closely following a number of transcontinental rail lines eastward from the Pacific to the vicinity of the Mississippi.

 

But trains racing eastward with the gigantic shadow of the moon will be quickly outstripped, for between sunrise and sunset this shadow sweeps from Japan to the Bahama islands, off the Florida coast.

 

Astronomer sharks, eager to see the sun’s corona, the only honest-to-goodness halo in the solar universe, will be joyfully hitting the ties along these roads on the day that will see night at midday.

 

But for the hoboes not in on the secret of the looney phenomenon it will probably prove a bad half hour around the tank stations.

 

 

(W.W. Campbell, Director of the Lick Observatory, University of California, Largest in the World.)

 

An eclipse of the sun, favorable for observation in the United States, will occur on the afternoon of June 8th.

 

It will be total for observers situated within a narrow band running diagonally across the United States, from Washington to Florida, and partial everywhere else in North America.

 

A total solar eclipse, given a clear sky, is one of Nature’s most wonderful phenomena, worthy of a long journey to see.  A partial eclipse, on the contrary, is hardly worth looking at.

 

Why do astronomers travel so far to observe total solar eclipses?

 

They go for the definite purpose of studying those parts of the sun and the sun’s surroundings which are invisible except at times of eclipse.

 

The brilliant sphere which we see in the heavens every clear day is the chief part of the sun, but not the whole of it.  When the moon comes exactly between us and the sun, finally covering completely the round body of the sun, the sky darkens, the beautiful solar corona bursts into view, and the brightest start become visible.  We cannot hope to understand the sun until we shall have studied thoroughly all parts of it, including those parts observable only during eclipses.

 

Astronomers know, very accurately, the orbit of the earth around the sun, the orbit of the moon around the earth, and the positions of the moon and the earth to those orbits.  It is for them an easy task to calculate just when the sun, moon and earth will be in a straight line, and where the moon’s shadow will fall on the earth.

 

In the eclipse of June 8 the moon’s shadow will touch the earth, at sunrise, at a point about midway between Tokyo and Manila, sweep northeasterly, pass 200 miles to the south of the Aleutian islands and, gradually changing to a southeasterly course, enter the state of Washington, at South Bend.  The central line of the shadow path will pass through Baker City, in northeastern Oregon; Pocatello, in Idaho; Green River, in Wyoming; Littleton (ten miles south of Denver), in Colorado; Ashland, in Kansas; midway between Enid and Guthrie, in Oklahoma; ten miles south of Yazoo City, in Mississippi; seven miles south of Orlando, in Florida; and end at sunset about 300 miles out at sea amongst the Bahama islands.

 

The total phase at Baker City will occur at 3:05, Pacific standard time; at Denver, 4:24 mountain standard time; at Jackson, Miss., 5:38 central standard time; and correspondingly for other points along the line.  The duration of the total phase at Baker City will be one minute and fifty-three seconds; at Denver, one minute and thirty-one seconds, and so on.

 

The width of the shadow path in Washington and Oregon will be about seventy miles, and in eastern Florida forty-five miles.

 

Intending observers can select their point of observation by drawing a straight line between the cities mentioned and locating themselves perfectly within fifteen or twenty miles of that line.

 

The interesting eclipse phenomena begin to be in evidence about a minute before totality is complete, when the brilliant flames shooting up from the solar surface, known as the prominences, first appear.  The solar corona becomes faintly visible a few seconds before the last trace of the solar crescent disappears, and flashes into full view the instant totality arrives.  The accompanying illustration gives some idea as to the form and structure of the corona.  The coronal streamers extend out in all directions from the sun, the longest sometimes to a distance of fivefold the sun’s diameter.

 

The corona supplies the chief eclipse problem; astronomers want to know its chemical composition, the conditions existing within it, its relation to the rest of the sun, and the reasons for its existence.  The corona appears to be a mixture of gases and finely divided solid particles.  A great many other problems relating to the outer structure of the sun and to the sun’s surroundings also receive attention.

 

Observers of the total eclipse must not expect the sky to be as dark as the night sky – far from it.  Good eyes should have no difficulty in reading ordinary newspaper print out of doors.