A total solar eclipse occurs when the Moon’s apparent diameter is larger than the Sun’s, blocking all direct sunlight, turning day into darkness. Totality occurs in a narrow path across Earth’s surface, and we won’t see another total eclipse in North America until 2044.  A partial solar eclipse is visible over a surrounding region thousands of miles wide and we are expecting partial eclipses to be visible in the northeastern United States on October 9, 2024; March 29, 2025; and February 19, 2026 (this will be viewable as a total eclipse in southern Europe, especially in Spain).  If you want to book Dr Rittenhouse in advance for these events, please contact me.  These are rare and special events so book early.

As you can see, solar eclipses are not especially rare but being in the right place to view them is.  In fact, they occur every 223 lunar cycles.  Half the time, however, the moon, sun and earth line up at night, giving us a lunar eclipse.  Lunar eclipses are viewable from broad areas of the earth so you can see them without necessarily traveling.  Should you want professor Rittenhouse to come to your site for a lunar eclipse, you have a few upcoming opportunities.  Total lunar eclipses will be visible in North America on March 14, 2025 (15 days before a partial solar eclipse!!!); March 3, 2026; and June 26, 2029.  You can also book Dr Rittenhouse for these events which are great additions to a tavern night.  Again, these are rare events so book early.

Sadly, we won’t be able to view another Transit of Venus or Mercury (a similar event where the planet passes between the Earth and the Sun casting a shadow) in my lifetime but perhaps like Dr Haley, I can encourage someone to pick up the telescope and carry on this tradition. 

I am also available to give talks and demonstrations even when the sun and the moon are not being obscured.

There were two total eclipses of the sun visible in the occupied regions of North America during the American Revolutionary War.  One occurred on June 24, 1778 as its path of totality passed very near to Philadelphia, the other on October 27, 1780 with a path of totality that included Boston.  Long the harbinger of doom and destruction, the solar eclipse – a phenomena that occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby totally or partly obscuring the image of the Sun for a viewer on Earth – was such a serious opportunity to understand the nature of the cosmos.  This event was so important to the Royal Society that the British offered special immunity to the scientists from Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania, including David Rittenhouse, to take observations of this event. The Harvard expedition (1780), after all their efforts, missed the eclipse because they chose a site outside the path of totality. Philadelphia’s noted astronomer David Rittenhouse was much more careful in his predictions and took careful observations in 1778.

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