Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 August 2010
… dews of blood,
Disasters in the sun, and the moist star,
Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands
Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse …”
(Shakespeare, Hamlet, 1.1.117–120)What is the difference between a total eclipse of the Sun and anything else Nature has to offer? All the difference in the world. A total solar eclipse, it has been said, is Nature's grandest offering. Nothing – not even for me the discovery of a comet – can approach the ecstasy that accompanies the sight of the Sun vanishing and being replaced by a jeweled crown. It's not just the appearance of the Sun transformed that does it; it appears that the rapidly dimming crescent Sun, increasingly covered by the Moon, provides a real-time dynamic event that is truly breathtaking.
The eclipse of 1918 … and of 2008
Of all the eclipses I have seen, for now I'd like to focus on just one – the eclipse of August 1, 2008. It was a repeat of the total eclipse that occurred 90 years earlier, on June 1, 1918. In a sense totality never ended that day long ago. Of course, totality could never last more than seven minutes and a few seconds for any eclipse, let alone a century, but in the minds of those who watch, the experience never ends. There is really no other way to write it; a total eclipse of the Sun is likely Nature's most incredible spectacle.
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