The “ring of fireplace” eclipse of Oct. 2, 2024, was a spectacular celestial occasion — and Dave Eicher noticed it from an equally spectacular setting.

Your editor is within the midst of a weeklong journey to a really distant place. A couple of days in the past I departed Tucson and traveled to Santiago, Chile, the place I met about 20 enthusiastic individuals who have been charged as much as see the annular eclipse that occurred at the moment. We spent two days touring the marvels of Santiago, and close by Valparaiso, which have been spectacular. After which, yesterday, we made the 5½-hour flight westward from the Chilean coast to one of the vital distant and storied locations on the planet I had not but been to, Easter Island. 

At the moment we had a kind of triple-play astronomical days that come alongside solely very not often. Our intrepid group, led by our tour companion Cengiz Aras of Eclipse Traveler, set off at 6 a.m. to a distant observing web site on this small island. Arriving half an hour later, we arrange reverse a protracted row of the well-known Moai statues, created between roughly 1200 and 1500 C.E., and readied ourselves for dawn. 

The primary spectacle of the day got here in viewing a very pristine, darkish morning sky. We had good wintertime constellations excessive overhead — the glories of Orion, Taurus, Canis Main, and the remainder of the gang. We had planets: dazzling Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn. We had splendors of the southern sky. It all the time amazes me to see the Orion Nebula after which look over, in the identical sky, to see the Carina Nebula, dwarfing Orion in dimension and brightness. We had Crux nonetheless above the horizon, and the opposite deep-sky wonders of Carina. We had the Magellanic Clouds, hazy and nicely outlined, like vivid patches of the Milky Approach chopped off and moved, and the good globular 47 Tucanae beside the SMC. 

And the glories stored coming. As daybreak started to brighten, we noticed the present poster little one of comets, C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, actually vivid at maybe 2nd magnitude, rising within the east, among the many row of Moai statues. It was an incredible astronomical deal with that appeared like one thing out of a movie, so dazzling was it. 

And we then returned, after the Solar rose, to our luxurious resort and ready for a lecture I delivered on the eclipse and viewing. A couple of clouds hopped across the sky as we set off for the eclipse locality, however nothing too alarming. And positive sufficient, as 12:23 p.m. native time approached, we had a transparent sky with a couple of passing small cumulus above us. We noticed first contact, and we have been within the midst of an annular eclipse, one wherein the Moon was comparatively distant and so made a considerably small black disk creeping throughout the Solar. As soon as once more, the precision of the timing impressed observers, and our hats have been as soon as once more off to Johannes Kepler. 

An hour and a half later, we witnessed the beginning of annularity, which gave us a “ring of fireplace” of daylight across the Moon’s disk, and our annular eclipse lasted for five minutes 48 seconds — a protracted eclipse — earlier than third contact started to revive the Solar, slowly. By practically 4 p.m. native time the eclipse, obscuration masking 87 % of the Solar, ended, and we may depend an unimaginable triple-play of astronomical delights. The darkish southern sky, the comet, and an ideal annular eclipse.

Seeing the numerous dozens of Moai has been superb, together with different treasures of the island. We’ll proceed to discover Easter Island for one more day and a half after which head again to Santiago, one other eclipse beneath our belt, one other vivid comet witnessed, and one other session beneath the deep southern sky, which my outdated pal Bart Bok used to love to say “has all the great things in it.”

What a whirlwind eclipse tour it has been to date. Extra to come back. I hope you noticed the eclipse too, or no less than a number of the magnificent photographs recorded of this magical phenomenon!

David J. Eicher is Editor of Astronomy journal, creator of 26 books on science and historical past, and a member of the board of the Starmus Pageant and of Lowell Observatory.