Ep#1 - Get In The Path

The first episode of Totality Talks!  We introduce ourselves and get acquainted with the podcast concept.  We also begin to guide listeners into the path and discuss the true awe of totality. We are working on our microphone issues and ask for your understanding and patience.  

There are a few small content errors in this podcast... that's why we will be interviewing experts!  We will also be utilizing the “wrong” buzzer when warranted.  Clear skies!

What creates a total solar eclipse? TED-ED
https://youtu.be/Qog18tiNnqg?si=THSMOmmwiF51c7i8

How solar and lunar eclipses work
https://youtu.be/oNH3akWXaV8?si=hhblWbd1hCkZWQSJ

Sponsor - American Paper Wear Solar Eclipse Glasses
https://ampaperwear.com/

Solar Eclipses Interactive Google Map courtesy of Xavier M Jubier
http://xjubier.free.fr/en/site_pages/solar_eclipses/TSE_2024_GoogleMapFull.html

Dr. Gordon Telepun’s Solar Eclipse Timer
https://www.solareclipsetimer.com/

NEW Prediction of Solar Maximum (Space.com)
https://www.space.com/solar-maximum-expected-2024-new-predictions-suggest

Weather prospects for 2024 and many future solar eclipses can be found at Jay Anderson's site: https://eclipsophile.com/2024tse/

“Solar Echoes” and “Automatica” music created by Nigel Stanford. 

Wild Times: Wildlife Education
Wildlife mysteries, crazy news, and daring animal stories—listen now!

Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Safe Solar Viewing Glasses, Eclipse T-Shirts and swag
https://texassolareclipses.com/shop

Host Leticia Ferrer's Texas Eclipses Site
https://texassolareclipses.com/

Host Chris Chotas Alexander's Site
https://www.chotachrome.com/
IG: @chotachrome

Totality Talks is created by Leticia Ferrer and Chris Chotas Alexander.

Totality Talks is produced by Chris Chotas Alexander.

Chapters

• 14:08 [Ad] Wild Times: Wildlife Education
• 14:49 (Cont.) Ep#1 - Get In The Path

Transcript

  📍  📍  📍 It took your breath for a minute. Yeah, I was like,  and then I was like, oh my god, this is really happening. And before I knew it, it was over. It was sad.  This is crazy! This is so nuts!  I'm

Letitia Ferrer.  And I'm Chris Alexander. 

And this is Totality Talks, the Solar Eclipse podcast.

 It just took my breath away, the whole thing.

It's really cool that you can see the corona and you see the sun kind of spewing out from behind the moon. It literally took our breath away. A lot of people

said overrated, but that  was like one of the coolest things ever. Not overrated.

Imagine, for a moment, being in a place where the world hushes to a stillness. The air grows cooler, and an eerie twilight envelops the landscape.  Birds fall silent, and the usual sounds of life give way to an unexpected silence.  As the moon's shadow kisses the earth,  a breathtaking celestial event unfolds.  On Totality Talks, we'll be interviewing experts, enthusiasts, and And taking the deep dive into the true awe of totality. 

For many people, it is a once in a lifetime event.  Unless you're crazy and chase them all over the world.  

I wouldn't call it crazy.  

I would.  When all my friends are retiring around me, because I spent all my money chasing solar eclipses. 

Well, hopefully they can roll you out there with your, uh, I saw the eclipse of 2045 t tshirt all worn out. 

That's it, when I'm 104.  Hi, I'm Letitia Ferrer. I have seen 20 total solar eclipses in my lifetime, and my intention is to see every one until the day I die. And I am so excited about the next eclipse coming right over North America. It's going to be awesome.  The last one was a little over two minutes.

This one's going to be over four minutes, especially through Texas, my home state.  I am what you call an umbraphile. One of those crazy people that go all over the world to see total solar eclipses.  And with me today is my partner,  Chris Alexander.  

I'm Chris and I am also an eclipse chaser.  I've only seen five total solar eclipses, so I am by no means an expert. 

I am what's known as a JAFO, which stands for Just Another  Friendly Observer.  I plan on getting into the path of the next one, and the next one, and the next one, and I'm gonna keep going until my body won't work or I can't afford it anymore.  

I'm a little bit more dedicated than you because if I can't afford it and my body won't work, it'll be time to move on to the next life  for me.

My goal is to come back and do this again because this has been really fun and I really enjoy it. Okay. 

So give us all the TED talk on how you became an Eclipse Chaser.  

After two total solar eclipses crossed Nova Scotia in 1970 and 1972, Carly Simon released the song, You're So Vain, which contained the line in the song, When you flew your Learjet to Nova Scotia to see the total eclipse of the sun. 

And to me, a 12 year old farm girl in Central Texas. This represented the epitome of freedom to explore the universe in all its wonder.  In 1991, on a beach 40 miles north of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, I experienced my first total solar eclipse. Using my solar eclipse safety glasses, always be safe, I watched the moon take its  first little bite out of the sun. 

First contact, somebody yelled. And we watched as the moon continued to take larger, and larger bites. At about 80 percent, the light around me had dimmed and become very eerie. It's kind of a spooky light  and the temperature had dropped noticeably. The sand on the beach became more sparkly as the sun's light diffracted differently.

I noticed that the light coming through the trees gave off three quarter moon shadows.  And I continued to watch as the moon spike got bigger and bigger and bigger until at the last point of the sun, a diamond ring flashed  and disappeared. This was second contact!  I removed my solar eclipse safety glasses, and what I saw sent a wave of awe, wonder, and primal amazement over me.

The sun was gone.  In its place was this beautiful, corona,  angel's wings. It's hard to describe. Just this  flowing corona that extended away from the sun behind the moon. It was stunning. It shimmered. It had a spectacular The coronas flamed and flared and flowed around the moon. Words, pictures, and videos cannot fully describe the experience. 

And again, it's an experience. Spiritually  I realized the immensity of the universe, that to create this moment of incredible beauty, the earth,  moon, and sun had to line up just right. And at the end of that alignment, myself, me,  just amazed. And the only thing I said at the end of it was, when and where is the next one?

I had to get in the path for the next one.  Sadly, for me, the next one wasn't until  1998,  but it was Aruba,  on a ship, same thing happened. It was beautiful. I was awestruck. I felt, I had this combination of feeling like the most blessed person on the planet to be able to witness this event,  as well as the most insignificant little ant, because it makes me realize the immenseness of the cosmos in my heart. 

So again, after I saw that one, I asked, when and where's the next one?  But this time I was surrounded by people on a cruise to go, Oh yeah, we're going over to Turkey for the next one. Oh yeah, we're going. Oh, I've seen five. I've seen six. I've seen 10.  So I ended up, I found my community,  people chasing eclipses.

So I saw, I've seen every total solar eclipse since 1998,  all over the world. 

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Okay. So what is a solar eclipse?  Why is it so rare?  There's so many questions about the solar eclipse. I'll just start answering some of them. First off, a total solar eclipse is one of the cosmic wonders of the solar system. Only on Earth does it happen. We have other planets have eclipses, but they're not like this one.

Throughout much of human history, these events inspired fear and trepidation.  And such is the power of science.  That total solar eclipses are predicted, explained, anticipated. And now by umbraphiles like me, sought after.  Even though we know how eclipses happen, for me, for many scientists, for many people across the world, and this is a global hobby, people all over the world chase total solar eclipses.

But it, knowing the science of it has not taken the wonder, beauty, the beauty away from these events at all.  Even though we know how eclipses happen, when they're going to happen. How they happen down to the second. We've calculated when they're going to start, when they're going to end, how the planets are going to line up with the sun.

That doesn't matter. It has not taken the wonder and the beauty of a total solar eclipse away from those of us who chase it.  And everyone here listening to this podcast, I believe, knows the basics. The Earth revolves around the Sun. The Moon revolves around the Earth. There's no flat earthers that are listening to this podcast.

I wouldn't be so sure.  Are there?  Please, please note it in the chats if you are.  They're out there.  But from the earth, the moon and the sun have an equal apparent size. The sun is 400 times larger than the moon, and the moon is 400 times closer to earth. Hence, the apparent size of the sun and moon are the same when seen from earth. 

As the moon revolves around the earth, at each new moon, the moon casts a shadow behind it.  However, the way the moon orbits, it actually goes above and below what's called the ecliptic plane of the sun, earth, and moon, which is better to describe with pictures, but we will put some, we'll put some, uh, pictures and links to a very, very good video  in the show notes,  but when the plane of the ecliptic is in that direct line between the earth and the moon's orbit crosses the ecliptic plane of the sun and earth, then the moon shadow will fall on the earth, creating a solar eclipse. 

The shadow's called an umbra, but depending on the point of the moon's orbit, whether it's, so the moon's orbit is elliptical, so it's not a  straight circle, so sometimes it's farther away from us, which is perigee?  Apogee is farther away, perigee is closer to us.  At apogee, we get an annular eclipse. At perigee, we get a total solar eclipse, but it only happens.

When it crosses that ecliptic plane of the sun, earth, and moon, a total solar eclipse only happens if it's closer to the earth.  

So Yeah. Well, we did have an annular on October the 14th, and we will talk about that in a future episode.  It sounds like we were both able to have good experiences. But, while they are both equally as scarce, Yes. 

they aren't quite as spectacular.  

They're still amazing. They're still amazing.  It's still, for me, it's still kind of touches my soul, soul. And the fact that it is, it's a cosmic event. It doesn't care about a petty little political boundaries down here on earth. It doesn't care who's running for president.

It doesn't care.  None of these things matter. 

Well, I guess the moon is still passing in front of the sun, so we don't get the darkness.  However,  In a total solar eclipse when the moon completely covers the face of the sun and everyone  lets out a cheer or a scream or some type of Noise, sometimes they're 

silent.

Sometimes they're just in 

shock quite silent, but there's a there's a overwhelming feeling of connectedness To everyone  in the universe, everyone in the location, everyone that's in the path. And it doesn't matter where you're from. Doesn't matter what you look like. It doesn't matter what you think.

We're all connected as human beings at that point. Yes. That's the beauty of it. We all 

live on the planet earth and we all are subject to orbital dynamics and we're, it's, we're lucky to be here. We're lucky the planet can support us. That just comes home to my soul. Yeah. It's 

soul touching. 

It's soul touching.

And it's, for me, it's global.  I have met so many people all over the world and traveled all the world and met so many great people and been so many great places.  

Yeah. And that's a lot of what we'll talk about here is a lot of, a lot of world travel is required. Once you, once you see one, you either get the bug or you don't.

And if you do get the bug, it means a lot of world travel. And that's beautiful is seeing a place on planet Earth that you've never traveled to, that you would never go, ever unless you were drawn to it. Because that's a place on earth that is accessible to witness a total solar eclipse. Although we do, sometimes it's not so easy. 

Sometimes 

it isn't so easy. In fact, um, 2016, I went to Palu, Indonesia,  2005 I went to literally the middle of the Pacific Ocean. I mean, literally, it was a four day ship from land just to see a 30 second eclipse in 2004. And where was that land? That land was the Galapagos. 

The Galapagos. So you're already out in the middle of the water and then you're sailing 

Another four days. 

There and back for 30 seconds of eclipse. Yeah. I slept the entire time. So, it was actually kind of a For me, it was a great cruise. For other people, not so much.  

Well, Letitia and I met  On an eclipse trip in 2020 during a pandemic in Argentina.  

Only crazy people would travel in the middle of a pandemic to see a total solar eclipse. 

But 

we're friends for a lifetime now. And maybe even the next lifetime. Maybe. 

Maybe. 

Maybe we were friends in a previous lifetime.  

Hopefully. 

So we went through  Nah, I don't want to get into the 2020 thing. We'll do 

that later. We'll do the 2020 thing later. We'll tell you about our little adventure with the 2020 thing. It was, it was an adventure. Oh my gerd. But why are we wanting to do this podcast? We want to do this podcast to hopefully, number one, inspire you to see the next one coming right over, right over North America.

Whether you're in Mexico, Texas, or the rest of the United States is the way as Texans look at it.  The eclipse goes all the way up into Canada. You, with a reasonably  well cared for car, you can get to see this total solar eclipse. And I  really do hope you take inspiration from this podcast to be able to do so.

If at minimum, some people, there's 12 million people just in Texas in the path.  I just want you guys to get off the phone, get away from the TVs, get away from the screens, step outside and see it. Oh, and by the way, pray for clear skies. Yes. Pray for clear skies all along the path. 

We'll be promoting clear skies on this podcast. 

Yes. Clear skies, clear skies, clear skies, clear skies. Make it a chant. Clear skies, clear skies. Anyway, we want you to take a look and be prepared. Um, eye mantras and you'll hear it over and over again on here. We have, uh,  we,  there are lots of very good vendors online.  Symphony and American Paperware are two that I personally use  for glasses.

And,  uh, just get your glasses now because as you get closer and closer to the eclipse, people will start to see people getting the bug. The crowd fact will come in and then they're going to be harder and harder to get and start costing more and more money.  

I know we go back and forth on this because I know that you want to be safety first. 

My problem is I've always been a safety third kind of guy.  But I heard a horror story, so I'm coming around on that one because here's the rule, never directly observe the sun. 

If you want to, if you look at the sun and you want to blink and look away, blink and look away. Go get the filters and then look at the sun.

Never directly observe the sun. Now, there are ways to get around that with trusty solar eclipse glasses. And here's the other rule. Don't forget to take your solar eclipse glasses off. When totality happens because you're not directly observing the Sun you're observing the moon  That's blocking the Sun 100 percent right.

So it's a hundred percent safe. Yeah, I've seen videos of people with their glasses on during totality. Oh It's like take them off. Take them off  

That's hurts  Yes, you're 

wasting seconds  You're wasting seconds and there's a sunset on the horizon for 360 degrees 

There are all sorts of great effects.  There's a couple of, um, our friend Gordon has that great app.

Does Eclipse speaker or Eclipse speak? We can, we should get the actual app name.  

It's called the solar eclipse timer.  

Anyway, that, that app is actually really good because it does remind you during the Eclipse, first off, look at, you know, diamond ring, you see the diamond ring. You're going to see  prominences popping out.

You're going to look for the prominences looking for the Corona. Look for the. The magnetic field the way it's driving the Corona the I call them angels wings of the Corona  

It depends because we had angels wings in 2019 and then last time it was just this last spring in 2023 we had star yeah  We had points coming out from  from what was it  How many points do we 

count?

Seven points. It was seven points.  I had never seen such a pointy eclipse. Now, the eclipse was just before total maximum. They are, the scientists are saying that we actually reached total maximum this July, 2023. Did they 

say that we already reached it? They said they 

may have. They said it was early. They said we're gonna, I thought they said we reached it early in 2023.

I mean July 23.  But that just means, but it's an 11 year cycle. So that means by the time we get to 2024, the E will still be on the backend kind of to coming down from that. But it's an 11 year cycle. It's a long ways to go. It's peak, I think. We'll, very near peaking peak. We'll still peak. We should be peak, I think.

Think we're still be peaking. Peek. Yeah. So it looks to 

be, which will mean,  which will mean Corona,  a view of the Corona that's shooting out from all areas of the sun and not just the equatorial.  Yeah, the equator, which is what you typically see during a solar minimum. Total solar eclipse. 

Pray for clear skies, pray for sunspots. 

Yeah. And  sunspots. And sunspots will help you focus. And so that's the good thing about Gordon is that  his app  will tell you when to take your filters off and when to take your glasses off and he'll also assist you if you wish to delve into photography, which If you're seeing your first total solar eclipse, I think we both recommend that you don't attempt to photograph it.

You should be  enjoying the experience.  Yeah. Or just put your phone on, hit record and walk away from it. But clicking pictures is no way to watch your first Total Solar Eclipse. 

That's what I do. That's what I do. Which is why I end up with overexposed videos.  

That's not the important part. No. The important part is observing it.

It's observing it. And you truly experience a Total Solar Eclipse. You don't just see it. You experience it. That's because the The weather changes, the animals change their behavior, birds stop chirping,  sometimes crickets start chirping. Chickens go 

to roost. If you live on a farm, chickens are going to go to roost.

Lots of farms in Texas will see those chickens just going, hey, it's night time, time 

for me to 2019 we had alpacas, and they didn't know what to do. The alpacas had no idea.  I think I saw a couple of them looking at the sun.  

The seagulls were coming, we're heading back to shore.  

Yeah, where were you at? 

You were in Chile?

I was in La Serena in Chile.  So we saw the seagulls headed back to shore. 

Totality Talk is sponsored by TexasEclipses. com where you can get the book Texas Solar Eclipses.  Learn about solar eclipse safety, the total solar eclipse in Texas of 1878, other recent total solar eclipses, how technology influences our experience, and citizen eclipse science then and now.  That's TexasSolarEclipses. 

com, click the link down below. 

But let's talk for a bit about how, why are they such a big deal coming over any one spot?  I mean.  Most people consider that total solar eclipses are very rare. They're actually not. There's usually one every 11 to 18 months. However, they're, they're rare on any one spot on any part of the world. So for the United States  prior to 2017, the previous eclipse had been  1979.

Then we had the one in 2017. And 

that was over the Northern part of the United States.  

It was Northern part of the United States. It was a piece of the United States, a piece of the United States North.  Western part of the United States got totality and it's a path nobody  when I say it comes across the United States I mean, it's still a path through the United States Not everybody in the United States will see a partial eclipse,  but not everybody will see a total eclipse unless you're in the path So the last one that actually touched the United States the 48 continental United States was it?

1979. Then we had the big one in August of 2017, which came across, it was a 70 mile wide path over 10 states.  And it was amazing. And then we're getting lucky again with 2024 coming, but this time it's coming up from Mexico all the way into Canada. But there's some places like not Columbus, Ohio, what is Carbondale, Illinois,  Illinois, that's a Carbondale, Illinois.

Is getting a double cross. They're a crossroads of the eclipse, but there's also one here in Texas because Texas is getting the annular eclipse on October 14th of this year, 2023, and the total solar eclipse on April 8th, 2024. And the crossroads of those two eclipses is around Fredericksburg and Kerrville.

Just west  of San Antonio and Austin. It's called the hill, the Texas Hill Country. Our Texas Hill Country is going to be the crossroads of those two eclipses. Ah, the crossroads 

of eclipses. Yep. Now that's pretty rare. 

But 

there are rare, there are rare. The fact after this one, so we got seven years after the 2017, we have another one crossing, touching the United States, crossing the United States.

But then the next one that's going to cross the United States is not going to be for another 21  years until 2045.  

But.  You could travel the world  and see the few that occur in between that time. Yes, so we're talking a lot about world travel here because Letitia and I will definitely be traveling  If 

possible, I don't know.

I'm going green. I'm going to Greenland for the next one. Are you going to 

Spain? I'm going to Spain I'm doing the Spain beach trip. Okay, you're doing the Spain beaches in Spain 

I'm doing Greenland because I've never been there I've 

never been either. I've never been to Spain either, so, there we go. You should do Spain first.

You can knock that out. 

Do Spain first, yeah.  But then the one after that's going to be crossing Egypt.  

Yes. And the Mediterranean. And I be, we'll both be um, on the same plan on that one. Yeah. I have not booked my trip yet, but this is something that you have to consider. When you start chasing eclipses is that when they're not in your backyard, like 2024,  you have to book your trips far in advance.

Far in advance. Yep. Well, actually, if you wanted to see the really the best place to see it in Texas is down there around in the hill country and places right now are just priced out of this world. I want to go down to Uvalde for the total, but I may be seeing it in my backyard. 

Yep. Yep. I've got a place picked out in Kerrville  and my plan is to head out to, um, south of Kerrville, Texas to, to observe and things go wrong.

I can watch it at my place in Austin,  but it's only two minutes of totality at my place. Yeah.  Four minutes and 20 seconds. I get two minutes. I'm on the edge of the path in 

Austin. It's three minutes here. I'm, but I'm only 50, I'm only 30 miles from, from center line though. Because if I go down to, I go down to Ennis, I can go down to Terrell, I can go over to Terrell.

It'll only depend on the weather.  It always depends on the weather.  

Yeah.  The best weather prospects are the further south and west that you go. That is why  the first place on land that has the best weather prospects is Mazatlan, Mexico. So, if you want to do the Mexico trip, and I'm pretty sure that that's, those places are all booked up.

Mexico is sold out.  

People have been planning on that for quite some time. Actually, 

people, people are now start, are chartering planes to go down there. Oh, day trip.  

But as we go up through America, we have, we go through, it goes through Arkansas, and then I think it crosses St. Louis, goes Indianapolis, and then over Buffalo, New York,  on into Canada, and out into the North Atlantic.

So that's the path for 24 totality. Get in the path, get in the path, get in the path. Get into the path.  

I just gotta get them out of the rooms. By the way, Hillsboro's closing.  Good, the schools? The schools are closing. Yeah, awesome.  That's what we need to get out there. I'm talking, I'm talking to guys that are doing events there.

I may have a gig.  The MC for the day of. With a piece of the, piece of the house. 

That's a lot of responsibility. And so you're going to be like, Oh, do I have to give up my eclipse observation? I'm going to have, I'm going to 

have Gordon's thing in my ear. I'm going to have Gordon's thing in my ear. Call it look out for first contact.

First contact should be found. Oh, yeah. First use your glasses to keep your glasses on. Who's going to yell first contact?  It'll be you.  No, I'm not going to yell first contact. I'm going to let somebody else yell first 

contact. I think you yelled it in Argentina 

in 2020. Oh, I yelled it. I've yelled it so many times.

I'm like, there he is, first contact. You're the first 

contact lady. I am. I'm the fourth contact troll.  

Guy, cause you're, you're there till the end. 

We hope you enjoy exploring the cosmic world of eclipses with us.  There's so much more to explore in the episodes to come.  We have interviews lined up with true experts in astronomy, astrophysics, psychology, travel, and other fields related to total eclipses.  You won't want to miss our next episode. We have retired astrophysicist, author, photographer, and eclipse expert.

Fred Espenak.  That's right, Mr. Eclipse himself.  Before we go, a big thanks to all of you for listening.  Rest assured, we are working out our microphone issues.  If you like what you hear, please subscribe, rate, and review our podcast to help us get better, and to encourage more people to join our community. 

Clear skies! 

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