THE ECLIPSE FROM COSTA RICA 

In case you missed viewing the path of totality during the recent solar eclipse, consider catching the next close one from here in B.C. or Oregon -- in the year 2017. I was one of the lucky ones who saw this year's eclipse from Playas del Coco in Costa Rica.

After a 6,000-kilometre flight from Vancouver via Toronto and Miami I arrived in the perpetual spring (average year-round temperature 72 degrees F) at the 4,000 foot altitude of San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica. This is the country that hasn't had an army since 1948 and has a higher literacy level than Canada. Some call it the Switzerland of Central America.

Costa Rica is small compared to Canada with slightly more than three million people, a 50 percent urban population and an area of 18,575 square miles. Costa Rica is the second smallest country in Central America (after El Salvador) and has a 133-mile-long coastline on the Caribbean and a 630-mile-coastline on the Pacific. Land distance between oceans varies from 75 to 175 miles. From the top of 11,322' Mount Irazu, a periodically active volcano, both bodies of water are visible.

Any eclipse is a crap shoot with odds approaching those of a lottery, due to unpredicability of weather. This spectacular solar event often takes place over water, since water covers two-thirds of the planet. In some cases the eclipse path travels over difficult or almost inaccessible portions of the world's land mass. Finding good weather at the right time and being able to get there is more luck than planning. We hit it just right thanks to our astronomical guide and part-time Spanish translator Ian McLennan, a Canadian and the former Director of the Planetarium in Rochester, New York (the UN Pavilion at EXPO 86 and the upcoming Burnaby 92 Science/Technology Centennial) who decided on Playas del Coco on Costa Rica's Pacific coast.

Weather was perfect -- the best of any location along the path of the eclipse which commenced at dawn over Hawaii and then crossed the Pacific to Baja California in Mexico. It then turned south through west central Mexico, Guatemala and Costa Rica, ending at sunset in the central Brazilian jungle. This was a total eclipse. The shadow of the moon completely blocked out the sun in its movement around the heavens.

From our location, which the gods had decreed to be a deck patio of a large private swimming pool, we observed for about 30 minutes, as the moon nibbled its way across the sun. An increasing portion of the sun was obscured by the shadow of the moon. Excitement ran high as the sun was totally eclipsed by the moon and the legendary "Bailey's beads", appeared around the edges of the sun. These resembled white pearls, appearing just for a few moments and were the last rays of the sun escaping through the mountain valleys of the moon.

After that, for almost five minutes, the sun was completely blocked by the black disc of the moon. All that was visible were solar flares or "prominences" shooting out from behind the now "blackened" surface of the sun. McLennan says that almost any of these flares could engulf 100 planets the size of earth, if they were closer to the sun.

The totality was awe-inspiring and made it much easier to understand why such events had a dramatic effect on populations past. Even today, many people are emotionally enraptured by the event. It is worth seeing, at least once in a lifetime.

Prior to this eclipse the last really good one, apparently, was in Indonesia in 1983. Eclipse expert, Ian McLennan, saw that one too. Actually, there are usually one or two total eclipses a year, but location and weather reduce interest and importance. Another eclipse will occur June 30, 1992 but you will have to be highly mobile to see it. It will start at the Atlantic edge of Argentina, cross the open South Atlantic Ocean, skirt southern South Africa and will mainly be an event after that for penguins and other Arctic birds. The next one of consequence and probable viewability will occur over India and Vietnam in 1995. The last nearby eclipse was on February 26, 1979 when the path of totality crossed Washington State, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and passed over the Northwest Territories.

On August 21, 2017 West Coast residents will get another opportunity to see a total eclipse when the path runs across Oregon State, the U.S. midwest and ends in the mid-Atlantic. B.C. viewers will enjoy a partial eclipse, perhaps 85 percent of what can be witnessed during totality.

See you there.

More information: H.R. Macmillan Planetarium, 1100 Chestnut St., Vancouver, BC V6J 3J9. Phone: 604/736-4431. Photo credit: Eric Dunn, Macmillan Planetarium.

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