A total eclipse photographed from Easter Island on July 11, 2010
(Fortune)
There are about 50,000 umbraphiles worldwide (about 80% are men). They follow closely the orbital cycles and travel to the ends of the earth for a chance to see a total eclipse, that rare astronomical event when the moon passes between earth and the sun. "It's like a first love," says the Slovak astronomer Vojtech Rusin, who has seen 20 eclipses (his first: 1973, Niger). "It's indescribable," says Rick Brown, a Long Island-based commodities and futures trader who also arranges eclipse trips (1970, Virginia Beach). Fred Espenak, a retired NASA astrophysicist based in Portal, Ariz., known as "Mr. Eclipse," recalls driving 600 miles to see his first at age 18, just a few weeks after he earned his driver's license. Espenak, 61, had been tearing through books about eclipses since he was 8, but the real thing "didn't look anything like what you see in books. You can't put words to it. As soon as it was over I thought, 'I've got to see another.' " So he did, in eastern Canada, in 1972. Drove for days, but it was clouded out, which happens. The next year he traveled to the Sahara. He estimates he's seen 90% of all total eclipses since 1970 -- there have been 21. The few he has missed have been due to budgetary realities. For example, he could either buy a new car after his old one died or see another eclipse. He had to be practical, but still, missing one always hurts.
MORE: Eclipses from around the world
The rarity of an eclipse is certainly one draw -- in 100 years, there are about 75 eclipses -- along with the sheer spectacle. But since eclipses often occur in unfamiliar places, they also offer a unique way to see the world. Eclipse chasing is, in part, "the allure of odd travel," says Rob Arnott, the renowned quantitative investor whose Newport Beach, Calif.-based Research Affiliates manages some $150 billion. His first eclipse was in Mazatlán, Mexico, in 1991. The longest possible eclipse lasts seven minutes, 32 seconds exactly, and occurs once every 1,000 years. In 1991 it wasn't quite as long -- five minutes, 48 seconds -- though the moon at that time was farther away from the earth than usual, creating a tiny ring surrounding the blackness. As Arnott stared up, he saw luminous bursts of light, growing dimmer and dimmer, trailing off into the darkness. He was looking at the sun's corona, a superheated, flaring and flaming plasma field that extends millions of miles from the sun's surface out into space.
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