WASHINGTON \u2014 While Monday\u2019s total solar eclipse in the US will be a once-in-a-lifetime sky show for millions, there\u2019s a small group of people…<\/b>
\nWASHINGTON \u2014 While Monday\u2019s total solar eclipse in the US will be a once-in-a-lifetime sky show for millions, there\u2019s a small group of people who have experienced it all before and they can\u2019 t get enough of it.
Glenn Schneider has seen 33. Fred Espenak has watched 28. Donald Liebenberg has logged 26. For newbie Kate Russo, it\u2019s 10 and counting.
These veteran eclipse chasers spend lots of money and craft intricate plans all to experience another mid-day darkening of the sky. Many work in science and related fields and they\u2019 ll travel around the world, even to Antarctica, to see one more.
\u201cI do this not so much as an avocation, but as an addiction, \u201d said Schneider, a University of Arizona astronomer.
Russo, a psychologist in Ireland who wrote a book about people\u2019s eclipse experiences, said some people find the experience life-changing. That happened to her.
\u201cEclipse chasing isn\u2019 t just a hobby or interest, \u201d Russo wrote in an email from Wyoming, where she traveled to see Monday\u2019s eclipse. \u201cEclipse chasing is a way of life. It becomes who you are.\u201d
Monday\u2019s eclipse will cut a 70-mile-wide path of totality across the country, when the moon moves between Earth and the sun, blocking it for as much as 2 \u00bd minutes. It\u2019s the first coast-to-coast full eclipse since 1918. Many of the big eclipse chasers are planning to be in Oregon or Wyoming because there\u2019s a better chance of clear weather there in August. They\u2019 ll be ready to drive hundreds of miles if need be to find good weather.
Total solar eclipses happen on average every 18 months or so, but they usually aren\u2019 t near easy-to-drive highways. Norma Liebenberg has been to a dozen, mostly joining her avid eclipse watcher husband, Donald, in remote places like Libya, Zambia and Western China.
\u201cIt\u2019s sort of mind-boggling that there are 1,000 people out in these isolated places to see it, \u201d she said. She even forgave her husband when he missed their first anniversary to go to a clouded-out eclipse in the South Pacific.
There\u2019s a compulsiveness to eclipse chasers, especially photographers, said Dr. Gordon Telepun, an Alabama plastic surgeon who has seen only three.
\u201cIt\u2019s very anxiety producing, it\u2019s very challenging, \u201d said Telepun, who even developed a talking phone app that times an eclipse so photographers don\u2019 t miss anything. \u201cIt\u2019s an adrenaline rush man, I\u2019 m telling you.\u201d
Telepun said his hero is \u201cMr. Eclipse\u201d Espenak, a retired NASA astrophysicist, who explains why chasers are the way they are.
\u201cIt\u2019s the closest any of us will come to being an astronaut and being in space, \u201d Espenak said.
Eclipse chasers say their first always hooks them.
Schneider, who got a telescope at age 5, planned out his first eclipse precisely. He was 14 in 1970 and he traveled from New York City to East Carolina University\u2019s stadium. He had choreographed how he was going to spend the 2 minutes 53 seconds of darkness. Then came the moment.
\u201cI was frozen in place, \u201d he recalled. \u201cI had binoculars around my neck for two and a half minutes and I never picked them up.\u201d
When it was over \u201cI was shaking. I was crying. I was overwhelmed, \u201d he said. \u201cIt was at that instant when I said \u2018Yeah, this is what I\u2019 m going to do with the rest of my life\u2019 .\u201d
Now Schneider takes his grown daughter with him to eclipses. And he invented what he calls the \u201clug-o-scope, \u201d a telescope that folds into its own luggage to make his eclipse chasing easier.
\u201cFlexibility is probably No. 1, \u201d Schneider said. \u201cKeeping your options and open and be ready to take that option if that\u2019s what\u2019s needed.\u201d
A veteran of 28 eclipses, Espenak often leads groups of 50 some people to view eclipses, lecturing both about the beauty and the science. Except when the hour grows close and the skies get dark, he goes silent.
\u201cOn eclipse day he\u2019s all business. He does not want to be diverted from his checklist of everything he wants to do, \u201d explains University of Tennessee\u2019s Mark Littmann, co-author with Espenak of the book \u201cTotality.\u201d \u201dIt\u2019s like you\u2019 re kind of trying to chat with a pilot coming in for an emergency landing. It isn\u2019 t that he\u2019s just not friendly, it\u2019s just not the right time anymore.\u201d
Donald Liebenberg has seen and blogged about his 26 eclipses for Clemson University, where he does research. He holds the record for most time in totality because the retired federal scientist used to view them by airplane whenever possible. In 1973, he convinced the French to let him use the supersonic Concorde for eclipse viewing and he flew at twice the speed of sound. He got 74 minutes of eclipse time in that one flight.
After spending more than 60 years flying around the world, this time the Liebenbergs are only going as far as their driveway.
This eclipse is coming directly to them in South Carolina.<\/p>\n

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