Totality: The Great American Eclipses of 2017 and 2024

by Mark Littmann, Fred Espenak

Overview

Totality: The Great American Eclipses is a complete guide to the most stunning of celestial sights, total eclipses of the Sun. It focuses on the eclipses of August 21, 2017 and April 8, 2024 that pass across the United States. The U.S. mainland has not experienced a total solar eclipse since 1979. This book provides information, photographs, and illustrations to help the public understand and safely enjoy all aspects of these eclipses including how to observe a total eclipse of the Sun, how to photograph and video record an eclipse, why solar eclipses happen, and more.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198795698
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	05/01/2017
Pages:	362
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Mark Littmann has written several popular books about astronomy. Planets Beyond: Discovering the Outer Solar System won the Science Writing Award of the American Institute of Physics. Planet Halley: Once in a Lifetime (Donald K Yeomans, co-author) won the Elliott Montroll Special Award of the New York Academy of Sciences. Reviewers described The Heavens on Fire: The Great Leonid Meteor Storms as a "unique achievement," "altogether satisfying," and "a compelling read."

Mark holds an endowed professorship, the Hill Chair of Excellence in Science Writing, at the University of Tennessee where he teaches three different courses in writing about science, technology, medicine, and the environment. He has helped lead expeditions to Canada, Hawaii, Bolivia, Aruba, and Turkey to observe total eclipses.


Fred Espenak is the most widely recognized name in solar eclipses. He is an astrophysicist emeritus at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, where he founded and runs the NASA Eclipse Home Page http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse.html, the most consulted website for eclipse information around the globe. His Five Millennium Canons of solar and lunar eclipses are seminal works for researchers, archaeologists, and historians.

Fred writes regularly on eclipses for Sky & Telescope and is probably the best known of all eclipse photographers. He leads expeditions for every total solar eclipse and has done so for more than 35 years. In 2003, the International Astronomical Union honored Espenak and his eclipse work by naming asteroid 14120 after him.

Table of Contents

1. The Experience of Totality2. The Great Celestial Cover-Up3. Ancient Efforts to Understand4. Eclipses in Mythology5. The Strange Behavior of Man and Beast - Long Ago6. The Sun at Work7. The First Eclipse Chasers8. The Eclipse that Made Einstein Famous9. Observing a Total Eclipse10. Eye Safety During Solar Eclipses11. The Strange Behavior of Man and Beast - Modern Times12. Eclipse Photography13. The All-American Eclipse of 201714. The Weather Outlook15. When Is the Next One? Total Eclipses: 2018-202316. Coming Back to America: The Eclipse of 202417. EpilogueAppA. Maps for Every Solar Eclipse 2017-2045App B. Total, Annular, and Hybrid Eclipses: 2017-2060App C. Recent Total, Annular, and Hybrid Eclipses: 1970-2016App D. Total Eclipses in the United States: 1492 to 2100

Editorial Reviews

"August 2017 heralds the first of two North American total eclipses with the second taking place in April 2024. Your guides to these two exciting events are Fred Espenak, often known as 'Mr. Eclipse' and Mark Littmann, an established Solar System writer and eclipse chaser. Together, they take you on a relaxed, well-written and information-packed expedition discovering the history of eclipses, the main players who observed them in the past, why they occur, how best to enjoy them, what to expect and where and when you will be able to see future total, partial, annular, and hybrid eclipses." - The Sky at Night

From the Publisher