'Eclipse chasers' pay up to $10,000 to fly into the moon's shadow in chartered jets - here's what it's like
There's nothing like an epic astronomical alignment to make you feel like you're riding a spaceship through an infinite void.
That evening I watched the sun set on the Rhine River and reflected on my experience. More than anything, I felt humbled.
Back on the tarmac in Düsseldorf, the group snapped a celebratory photo, and then everyone began making their way home.
The trip wasn't over, though: The airplane banked hard and turned toward the North Pole. At the time, it looked like this:
The only indication that we had arrived at the Pole was an announcement over the intercom.
After totality, two passengers — Joel Moskowitz and Craig Small — paraded a custom eclipse flag around the cabin. The two were the most devout eclipse chasers I'd ever met. "I have no intention of ever missing an eclipse for the rest of my life. I don't care where it is, even in the remotest area of the Earth," Small told me. "I have to be there, I will be there."
"When you see one, you want to see more. You get hooked," Moskowitz added. "Seeing the corona during totality is better than sex."
Totality ended after three minutes with the appearance of a second "diamond ring" on the opposite side of the moon. The eclipse phases then moved in reverse as the umbra sped eastward ahead of our jet.
When I looked away from the eclipse, I was shocked by the darkness of the umbral shadow on the clouds, ice, and ocean. Its edge looked like a cross between a sunrise and a sunset. I could also see stars and planets in the sky.
The next few minutes were a blur, but I clearly saw a solar prominence — a giant wisp of plasma arcing off the sun's surface — and the wispy corona.
Then a brilliant burst of light appeared, a stage called the "diamond ring." That's the point when you can first see the corona, or outer atmosphere of the sun. "Totality is starting!" Schneider yelled.
My heart raced as the moon reached "second contact" — the start of totality, when the umbra would pass over our jet. For a moment, a tiny sliver of light was all that remained of the sun.
The pilot ordered everyone to their seats, but passengers scrambled to the starboard windows. Schneider excitedly narrated every stage of the eclipse over the intercom.
We were in the lighter outer shadow of the moon, called the penumbra.
Soon, the moon began to slip in front of the sun — a moment called "first contact." Then the skies slowly gradually began to darken.
The plane also flew over the rugged terrain of Svalbard, a mountainous archipelago, and its glaciers.
Our chartered jet took off around 5:45 a.m., and we began flying north toward the Arctic. The umbra wouldn't pass overhead for another four hours, so we passed the time by sleeping or gazing at a seemingly endless plane of jagged sea ice.
Passenger and lawyer Sharon Gray offered some advice for first-time eclipse watchers: "Just watch it. Don't worry about anybody else or the camera," she said. "Just succumb to the experience."
Clint Warner, a nutritionist I met wearing what he called a "solar eclipse suit," said this was his 12th total eclipse. "It's the most amazing natural phenomenon I've ever experienced. It's always intoxicating," he said.
The trip wasn't cheap. An American passenger told me that some customers paid about $10,000 for a window seat.
"It's a lot of money. I see it being a barrier for people," the passenger told me, adding that the trip was "the most expensive of his life."
Seeing totality from a plane, Beatty said, is an altogether different experience. "The sky is that much clearer and that much blacker. And that makes the corona that much brighter and more electric. It's really an electric-looking phenomenon."
Kelly Beatty, an editor for Sky & Telescope, also helped plan the trip. "A total solar eclipse is one of nature's most awesome events," Beatty told me. "Anyone who's seen one knows that."
Glenn Schneider, a University of Arizona astronomer (and self-professed eclipse obsessive), helped organize the charter flight, starting two years in advance.
Though we'd miss the maximum eclipse point, where totality lasts the longest, our Airbus A330 could travel at about 560 mph. This would help us chase the moon's east-moving umbral shadow and give an extra 30 seconds or so in darkness.
Our flight would last 12 hours. After chasing the umbra, we'd turn north for a quick pass over the North Pole. Our destination sign at Düsseldorf Airport prompted a lot of quizzical looks from passers-by.
After a flight across the Atlantic Ocean, I landed in Düsseldorf, Germany, where more than 140 eclipse chasers had also gathered. We stayed overnight, woke up at 3 a.m. on the morning of the eclipse, and went to the airport.
Before that moment, the closest I'd come to seeing an eclipse was an attempt to watch an annular eclipse (where the moon doesn't fully block the sun) out the windows of my grade school.
My teachers wouldn't let me outside for fear I'd damage my eyes, but there are plenty of ways to watch any eclipse without staring at one, including the use of pinhole cameras.
Sources: NASA-JPL, A.T. Sinclair/NASA
In 2008, when I was a freelance journalist, a sightseeing company called Polarflug offered to fly me to Germany and chase the August 1 total solar eclipse. I said yes.
However, some hardcore eclipse chasers spend thousands of dollars to chase the moon's shadow from the skies.
That's because the umbra averages less than 100 miles wide near the equator — a fraction of a percent of Earth's day-side surface area.
Source: TimeAndDate.com
Total solar eclipses aren't rare — they happen about once every 18 months — but most locations on Earth only fall in one's path every 370 years or so.
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