Photographs: Eclipse by Ernie Piini * Portrait by Skye Dunlap * Photo illustration by S.R. Woehrmann

Total Eclipse of the Sun

Local resident follows the path of the moon

By Mary Barnett

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'Strange happenings occur during an eclipse of the sun. The air around you cools, the surroundings darken, a sense of something strange about to happen excites you; most of all this phenomenon has a disturbing effect on insects, animals and birds. For all God's creatures, the daytime sun is fast returning to night. Usual routines for a nice day in the swamps and pastures, or a flight to a faraway tree, are disrupted by these strange goings-on. Their day has been cut short; frogs begin their nocturnal croaks, cows walk slowly toward their barns, and birds fly slowly back to their roosts.'

-- from Eclipse Over India by Ernie Piini

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Thousands of people turn out for a solar eclipse, and thousands more view more than one, but there's a group of about 200 "chasers" from all over the world who show up every time the shadow of the moon completely covers the sun--be it in Munich or Mongolia.

Ernie Piini, a retired engineer and active member of the Cupertino Senior Center, is a member of that select group of eclipse chasers. In fact, Piini is the only chaser in Santa Clara County.

"The nearest other fan is in Newark City," he says. "Many are from the east--New Jersey, New York. A lot of them come from Southern California. And I've met a lot of good astronomers from Uruguay, Africa, Java. ..."

Piini is in Munich to view the Aug. 11 total solar eclipse across Europe. The event will be Piini's 21st eclipse sighting.

To enthusiasts like Piini, a husky, vigorous man with a head of white curls, it is definitely not the case that if you've seen one solar eclipse, you've seen them all.

"Every eclipse has a different face," he says. "I can look at a picture and tell you what eclipse it was."

Today's eclipse across Europe is the only total solar eclipse this year. There won't be any in 2000, but in 2001, there will be one in Africa.

"People from all parts of the world come to see eclipses," says Piini. "The one coming up [today] will be extremely popular. It will go through a lot of big cities."

Piini, who is of Italian and Swiss descent, will watch the eclipse in Munich in the company of a Swiss cousin.

Piini's family has not taken up his hobby, although his wife, whose specialty is growing orchids, has accompanied him to several eclipses. His daughter saw one, and his youngest son and his wife accompanied him to one in Java.

"But the family thinks this is a great thing for me to do," he says. "This is my vacation time. This is my treat."

A bonus of Piini's hobby is that it takes him to parts of the world he otherwise would probably never see. He can discuss the Taj Mahal or the lifestyles of Mongolia.

Casting Shadows

There are a minimum of two eclipses a year, but they could be partial. Total eclipses--when the moon completely covers the surface of the sun--occur every 18 months on the average.

An eclipse occurs when the moon moves into a direct line with the sun and the earth. There are two kinds of eclipses--lunar and solar. Most people have seen at least one lunar eclipse, when the full moon passes through the shadow of the earth. A solar eclipse can occur only during the new moon.

Total solar eclipses are rare. Eclipses do not occur every month during a new moon because the moon's orbit is tilted in relation to the earth's. Usually the moon passes slightly above or below the line between sun and earth.


Photograph by Ernie Piini




The only way to see a total solar eclipse is to be in "the path of totality," which is directly in the shadow of the moon. This path, sometimes up to 200 miles wide, never covers more than roughly one-half of one percent of the earth's surface.

With fewer than 70 total eclipses a century, the chance to see one is, for most people, a once-in-a-lifetime event--unless, like Piini, they seek them out wherever they may be.

Eclipses are possible because the sun and the moon appear from earth to be about the same size in the sky. The sun's total diameter is 400 times that of the moon, and the sun is about 400 times as far away from the Earth. If the moon's diameter were just 140 miles less, it would not be large enough to completely cover the sun.

First Contact

Observers exhaust superlatives in describing solar eclipses. "Truly awesome spectacle," and "a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon," gushes an eclipse website.

Typically, onlookers react to the first lunar contact with the sun, called "first bite," with a great shout and wild snapping of cameras. The sun should only be viewed through filters to prevent eye damage.

"You see a little notch on the sun made by the moon," Piini says. "You keep the filters on until the last few seconds before totality."

After first contact, hardcore observers like Piini check their equipment to make sure it is tracking well. Piini has built his own telescope with three cameras attached. His telescope is very accurate--to about 1/20 of a wave-length, as contrasted to about a quarter of a wave-length in ready-made telescopes.

"As the eclipse continues, the temperature gets cool and it begins to get dark," Piini says in describing the eclipse. "The moon shadow surrounds you. After the eclipse you see it going off to the east. At totality, you see the corona--the sun backlighting the moon. If conditions are right, you see a shadow on the ground just before totality and seconds afterward. I've only seen three."

Just before totality, beads of sunlight poke through the valleys of the moon. Then comes the 'diamond ring' effect. The biggest valley in the center of the moon's patch creates the illusion of a beautiful ring in the sky with a diamond on it.

"The eclipse just boggles your mind," Piini says. "People who see it the first time can't contain themselves."


Photograph by Skye Dunlap

Ernie Piini displays the wall dedicated to his published photographs of eclipses. Piini shot the pictures using a custom-built telescope with three cameras attached. He says his telescope is more accurate than those that can be purchased in stores.




Chasing the Moon

Piini attributes his lifelong fascination with eclipses to being born and raised in the Salinas Valley.

"There were very few lights then," he says. "You could see stars and planets. I fell in love with astronomy, and used to borrow the school's telescope."

After Piini returned to the area following a stint in the Navy, he took an astronomy course at Foothill College taught by Marvin Vann, curator of the observatory. Under Vann's direction, Piini built his own telescope.

Piini's became enchanted with eclipses after viewing his first in Mexico.

"Vann organized a trip to Mitla, Mexico, to observe a three-minute total solar eclipse," he says. "But three minutes isn't long enough. I was so fascinated, I had to keep going to see more."

Piini holds a special memory from each of his eclipse sightings.

"Among my experiences, the one in India, on Oct. 24, 1995, was one of the best," he says. "What a great day, with no clouds in the sky, a near-perfect horizon, and an astonishing setting with the locals singing their Dinali songs," he said. "Russia was good. Bolivia, at the 13,000-foot level, was great. Africa has been good, and Kenya was very good. In Africa in 1973, there was a seven-minute, six-second eclipse."

But the event in Baja California in 1991, lasting six minutes, 30 seconds, has been dubbed "the eclipse of the century."

"The coronal streamers [one of the phenomena of eclipses] stretched way out, in directions you didn't expect," Piini reports.

Piini writes books about eclipses he has seen, gives talks, and presents videos for Cupertino Senior Center Television Productions. He has sold eclipse photos to Astronomy and Sky and Telescope magazines. These are all good ways, he thinks, to get others hooked on what he considers the world's best hobby.

To those who would like to take up watching eclipses as a hobby, Piini's advice is to start by joining an astronomy club. Such clubs teach budding astronomers how to build telescopes that are more accurate than store-bought ones.

The nearest club is the San Jose Astronomical Association, P.O. Box 11056, Campbell, 95011-0566. Write and ask for a copy of the newsletter, which has a membership form on the back. Bring the form to any SJAA meeting (dates are in the newsletter) or mail it to the SJAA.

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