What's next?
That's always the first question everyone asks whenever an
eclipse is over - "When's the next one?" Well, there'll always be
more eclipses. Actually, to be accurate, let's say that for at
least the next 700 million years or so, there will be; that's when
astronomers say that the moon, in its gradual retreat from the
earth due to tidal friction, the gradual slowing of the Earth's
rotation, and something physicists call "Conservation of
Momentum", will be too far away from us to produce anything more
than an annular eclipse. I don't plan to be around then, and I
doubt that any copies of this web site will be, either, so let's
just say that they'll be with us forever, and be done with it.
Here in the US, we saw a partial eclipse on Christmas
Day, 2000, but I'm sure you realize by now that seeing a
partial eclipse compared to a total is like putting a cheap comic
book up next to Shakespeare! In May of 2012, I went to Texas to
see the sunset annular eclipse. And as far as totals go, I
went to Egypt to
see the one in 2006, and then I had my flight to the polar
north in 2008, China in 2009,
and Tatakoto
atoll (2010) to look forward to. Those three in a row
weren't easy to pull off, but even with the China rainout, they
were more than satisfying.
2012 was tough, being almost entirely over the South Pacific - and
with a lot of people converging on Australia, I decided to see
this one on a boat (the Celebrity
Millennium).
2013 was was one my greatest eclipse experiences ever!
I was forced to miss 2015, unfortunately, but picked back up again in 2016 with an eclipse flight aboard a regularly-scheduled passenger plane.
Then, of course, is 2017's great American total eclipse. Just follow the link, and that'll be all you need to know!
This one will be the first of two eclipses I will have waited my whole life for: 21 August 2017 and
8 April 2024, both of which are visible from the Continental US!
(And are sure to be exciting events, even though they both happen
to fall on a Monday!) In fact, in 2024, I won't even have to
leave my front yard to see totality!! (It is in my will that, if I
don't make it to the ripe old age of 60 for that one, to have the
urn containing my ashes opened and set outside so I can "see" that
final eclipse on my home soil. What things do you talk to your
wife about?)
I've started sites for each of these two major U.S. eclipses,
to try and spread the word on making sure as many people as
possible get out and see them! Visit those sites at www.eclipse2017.org and www.eclipse2024.org!
There are a few more eclipses scattered in there, but those two
will be the big ones for me. I will recruit everyone I know to
come and watch them with me, to share something with them that
I've loved my whole life, and to enjoy the look of jealousy on
their faces when they realize they won't live long enough to see
as many as I have! (2024 could conceivably be my seventeenth!)
My youngest daughter gets to have an eclipse on her 21st birthday,
in 2019! If she wants, I'll be more than happy to take her on a
South Pacific cruise to see it.
If I live long enough, I will once again go to Egypt in 2027 to
see an eclipse from the Valley of the Kings or Luxor. (Darn it!
The Pyramids don't get an eclipse in my lifetime!) And then, if I
can make it to age 69, I will go to Barrow, Alaska in March of
2033. I will stay (once again) in the wonderful King Eider
Inn, enjoy an eclipse at noontime (as I did for my first one,
almost 42 years earlier), and then jump in for a swim in the
frigid Arctic Ocean and die happy, finally having been eclipsed
myself by a hypothermically-induced heart attack!
Well, just kidding about the heart attack, but wouldn't that be a
great way to go? Aw, heck, I couldn't do it anyway - Africa gets
yet another eclipse in 2034, and you never know....