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The greatest show on Earth                              

A total solar eclipse is the most amazing spectacle in nature. Everyone should try to witness this event at least once in a lifetime. Once you’ve seen an eclipse, you will be touched for life and might be inspired to join the ranks of eclipse observers who plan trips long in advance to remote corners of the world.

Eclipse maps are the vehicle for eclipse observers to plan expeditions, study observing prospects, and relive adventures of eclipse day. Any eclipse observer will tell you that eclipse maps are vacation guides for a lifetime. You use an eclipse map to find locations for the eclipse phenomena you wish to observe. You can choose a spot along the center line to maximize your duration of totality along with good weather prospects or you can choose a point near the limit lines of totality to enjoy dramatic effects, such as extended views of the sun’s photosphere, the innermost and most colorful section of the sun’s corona.

Eclipse maps are astonishing because they dare to predict precise locations and timings of future eclipses as well as the paths of eclipses in antiquity. Each eclipse map tells a story that weaves together geographic knowledge, information visualization, scientific understanding, and artistic flourishes. Eclipse maps are remarkable artifacts of our civilization.

Credit where it is due

The new eclipse maps that I publish on the Gallery page of this web site are built on the work of others. My chief collaborator is Bill Kramer who runs the comprehensive web site http://www.eclipse-chasers.com. Bill developed a solar eclipse calculator and built me a custom interface to generate millions of data points for each eclipse.

These maps apply prediction results from several eclipse researchers. Xavier Jubier has an indispensable web site for generating interactive eclipse maps at http://xjubier.free.fr/en/index_en.html. I use his data for mapping the limit and central lines of eclipses. The foundation of contemporary eclipse predictions comes from the work of Jean Meeus and Fred Espenak. They have produced the authoritative Five Millennium Catalog of Solar Eclipses at http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEcat5/catalog.html. A notable characteristic of the newest eclipse maps on this web site is that they incorporate eclipse timing corrections for the precise shape of the Moon. Dave Herald of IOTA (www.occultations.org) generated the lunar limb profiles used for calculating the timing corrections from the laser altimeter data collected by the Japanese lunar orbiter, Kaguya.

Several persons have kindly provided research and reproductions of early eclipse maps. Robert van Gent, historian of astronomy (http://www.phys.uu.nl/~vgent/), shared his research and many images of early eclipse maps. Klaus-Dieter Herbst, historian of science, uncovered the two earliest known eclipse maps from Jena, Germany. Eli Maor, professor of mathematics at Loyola University and collector of eclipse maps, gave advice and several reproductions from his collection. Jay Pasachoff, professor of astronomy at Williams College and chair of the International Astronomical Union Working Group on Solar Eclipses (http://www.eclipses.info) provided research, advice, and eclipse map images from his collection. Sheridan Williams (http://www.clock-tower.com), director of the Computing Section of the British Astronomical Association, has kindly provided many eclipse maps from his personal collection.