To catch an eclipse (con't)
Two astronomers travel mountains and jungles chasing the ultimate celestial thrill
For a total solar, chances are you need to hit the road. The last shadow of totality to streak through New York City was in 1925, and it won't be back until 2079.
"Consider the coincidental nature of it all," says O'Grady. "The moon is a fourth the size of the Earth, and the sun is thousands of times greater than the Earth, but they appear exactly the same size."
The diameter of the sun is 400 times greater than the moon, while the average distance of the sun is 400 times farther away, making ours the only seat in the solar system to enjoy this one-to-one satellite perspective.
Brandon, Manitoba: February 26, 1979
It was foggy the morning of O'Grady's second eclipse, and when temperatures dropped, the frost formed like feathers. O'Grady, his brother and sister, and a friend of theirs had been two days on the road, through Michigan, past the Soo Locks and around the west shore of Lake Superior and Thunder Bay.
They saw green vertical streaks of aurora borealis as they rode the trans-Canadian highway into Manitoba. The side of their red '71 
Plymouth Valiant was covered with salt and dirt, and written into it were the words: "Eclipse or Bust."
They pulled down a side road to find a man with a telescope and a camera. Moments later, the cows headed toward the barn, and the crowd of five looked out over the frost-encrusted snow.
"You could see millions of bright pinpoints of light and color, like someone had cast all these jewels over the white snow," says O'Grady.
The temperature dropped to zero. A great diamond ring flashed in the sky for just a moment before a great shadow swallowed them whole, leaving only the black silhouette of the moon and a silver circle in the sky.
Eye of a god or wings of a monster?
Bill Kramer, self-proclaimed chaser and Web master of www.eclipse-chasers.com, describes an eclipse as "a large eye floating in the heavens, looking back down at you with a hot, piercing stare. … It is a small wonder that eclipses caused great concern among people who were not expecting them."
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