No Complaints

When a total eclipse of the sun passes any considerable distance across land, the gloating of astronomers who enjoyed clear weather during totality is usually mingled with groans from others foiled by clouds. Last week no groans were heard after the eclipse which crossed a great reach of the Pacific, touching almost no land (TIME, June 14). It was unfortunate that this celestial performance, which had a maximum totality duration unequaled in more than 1,200 years, should confine its watchers to three small, makeshift observation areas, only two of which were on solid ground. But none of these areas had bad weather.

At tiny Canton Island, near the sunrise end of the shadow path, confused frigate birds came in from the sea when darkness fell. In Peru, at the sunset end, bats flitted around the fast-working scientists. Radio crews of NBC at Canton Island and of CBS in Peru were able to broadcast lyrical descriptions. The sun's corona was almost circular, a form associated with the high sunspot activity currently manifested by the sun. Exulted white-thatched Clyde Fisher of Manhattan's Hayden Planetarium : "This was the most beautiful of four totalities I have observed."

Calculated maximum totality at the noon point in mid-Pacific was 7 min. 4 sec. Astronomers James Stokley of Philadelphia's Franklin Institute and John Quincy Stewart of Princeton did not quite reach this point in the S. S. Steelmaker, a freighter belonging to a subsidiary of U. S. Steel Corp., but with sympathetic co-operation from the captain they did get close enough to expect a duration of 7 min. 2 sec. Actually they were in the shadow cone for 7 min. 6 sec.--longer than the mathematical maximum--because while the shadow fled eastward the ship was also moving east at eight knots.

Reported Dr. Stokley by wireless: "The whole scene had a peculiar hue as if illuminated by an arc light. . . . The camera was grinding and the ocean was getting darker, but I could not notice any definite shadow on the sea. Then I heard the whistle blown by the ship's carpenter as a sign that totality had begun. Overhead appeared the brilliantly clear, greyish-black disk of the moon and around it the sun's corona. At least seven prominent streamers were apparent, as well as several smaller ones. The longest extended about twice the moon's diameter. Four spots of red solar prominences appeared plainly during the eclipse. The planet Venus, which appeared even before totality, shone; also Mercury and several stars of first magnitude. The sky appeared a deep blue as did the water even at the beginning of the eclipse. I could see to the west all the way under the moon's shadow to where the sun shone more than 150 miles away. This low saffron brightness ascended steadily during the eclipse. At the centre it went all around to about 10DEG above the horizon, above that changing gradually to a dark blue. After totality the shadow was seen in the high haze to the east for several minutes."

Having accepted the ability of masters of celestial mechanics to predict the paths and times of eclipses years ahead, laymen are surprised when the prophecies are a few miles or a few seconds in error. Last week in Peru Dr. Serge A. Korff of the Carnegie Institution reported that the eclipse lasted ten seconds longer than the computations called for, and a Japanese savant declared that it began ten seconds later than expected. The fault is not with human mathematics, but with a mysterious wobbling of the moon from its orbit.

The man who appears to have tracked down this lunar divagation, which he calls the "X factor," is Dr. James Robertson of the Naval Observatory, who has been prophesying eclipses for 26 years. Dr. Robertson now believes the "X factor" to be a resultant of three irregularity cycles, one of a lunar month, one of eleven to 13 months, the third varying over a long period up to 70 years. According to first reports from Canton Island, Dr. Robertson's time predictions for that spot, allowing for the "X factor," had hit the actual eclipse times on the nose.

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