Ep#24 - Jared Koh - Chasing Totality

Show Notes — Ep24: Chasing Totality with Jared Koh

Jared Koh joins Totality Talks to discuss Chasing Totality: The Complete Handbook for the 2026 Total Solar Eclipse, co-written with his father Joe Koh, and their family's eclipse-chasing journey since 2008.

Topics covered:

• 0:33 — Introduction and Jared's eclipse count (4 total, 1 annular)
• 0:54 — First eclipse in 2012 aboard a cruise ship in the Pacific
• 3:56 — The Saros cycle and why "science deepens wonder"
• 4:22 — Common eclipse-chasing mistakes from the book's "Ghost in the Machine" chapter (solar filters, bumped focus, dead batteries, autofocus)
• 7:49 — Camera fails across four eclipses (2012 phone footage, 2017 360 camera, 2024 drone freeze)
• 17:45 — Family background: parents' astronomy/travel passions and the "Beyond Totality" mini-site
• 17:50 — The 2023 "triple diamond ring" eclipse proposal story
• 22:41 — Drone photography, GPS interference, and country-specific drone regulations
• 28:07 — Gear planning with Dad's PADCO framework (Path, Accessibility, Duration, Cloud cover, Outreach)
• 36:24 — Community and outreach at eclipse gatherings
• 41:34 — Jared's favorite part of the book: a photo with his parents at his first eclipse
• 43:38 — The "eclipse pitch deck" and convincing friends/family to join the trip
• 45:40 — Describing totality as a sudden sunset/sunrise
• 52:50 — How technology changes (and might diminish) the eclipse-chasing experience
• 54:47 — Gear rigs and camera automation setups (SetnC solar clip timer)

Mentioned resources:

• Book: Chasing Totality: The Complete Handbook for the 2020 Total Solar Eclipse by Jared and Joe Koh
• Mini-site: chasingtotality.org/beyond ("Beyond Totality")
• Book: Total Addiction and Being in the Shadow by Kate Russo
• 2026 total solar eclipse cruise details (Southampton → Ibiza → La Coruña, Spain
• Jared's Eclipse Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccNnrhExC58b

Leticia Ferrer's 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.  

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:15

I'm Letitia Frere. And I'm Chris Alexander. And this is Totality Top. The Solar Eclipse podcast. My breath away. It's really cool. Literally took my breath away.

SPEAKER_07 0:41

Welcome back to Totality Talks. We have multiple interviews that we'll be pushing out quickly over the next three weeks as we travel into the path of the August 12th, 2026 total solar eclipse. So like and subscribe to get those when they're published. In this episode, we have Jared Co. He co-authors the new book Chasing Totality. Here we go.

SPEAKER_05 1:08

All right, I'm just going to do a quick intro. Today we're talking with Jared Coe. He and his father, Joe Ben Co, chase eclipses together as a family. And they've just written a book, Chasing Totality, the complete handbook for the 2020 total solar eclipse. And we're going to be talking to Jared about his travel doing this and especially about the pivots that were included in the book, which I think were very, very helpful for especially first-time observers.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

Thank you so much for having me on. I'm so excited to be here.

SPEAKER_05 1:40

Well, you've been chasing how many eclipses do you have under your belt now?

SPEAKER_00 1:45

So I've seen four total eclipses. And uh maybe a fifth would be an annual one, but that's from Singapore, and we didn't have to leave the country to see it. The best con. The best con.

SPEAKER_05 1:56

Where was your first one?

SPEAKER_00 1:58

Um, the first total eclipse that I saw uh was actually in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Um so this is in 2012. Um basically, mom and dad had been doing this for several years, and I had accumulated enough leave. So I joined them on a 21-night cruise, I think, on the Celebrity Millennium. Uh we left Port, we left Honolulu in Hawaii, uh, and then and the cruise would end in Sydney, Australia. And the eclipse was planned uh halfway through that in the middle of the sea. So that was my first eclipse. It was amazing.

SPEAKER_05 2:30

That's wonderful. That's wonderful. So your first one was at C.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

That's right.

unknown 2:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

Okay. I would say that, you know, um, obviously, I I think I might be I might be one of these eclipse chasers that sees a lot of eclipses from ships. Because um the 2012 one was from the ship. Um, I think in 2023 as well, I saw one um off the coast of um Perth in Australia. Um we saw that one as well in 2023 on the ship, and the and for this year in 2026, I'm gonna be aboard yet another cruise ship on the cruise ships off the cruise.

SPEAKER_05 3:02

It's probably because your parents like cruising too.

SPEAKER_00 3:05

They do.

SPEAKER_07 3:06

They do.

SPEAKER_05 3:07

They do.

SPEAKER_07 3:08

So where did your Perth uh cruise take you?

SPEAKER_00 3:11

So the one in 2012. Uh 2023. Oh, 2023? No, we literally got on the ship uh at at the port of Fremantle in Park, and then it sailed up north, uh just north of Exmouth, which is where the eclipse was happening. Uh we did not dock anywhere. There was literally just an eclipse cruise. So they left port, we saw the eclipse, and then we came back.

SPEAKER_05 3:32

Wow. Oh, okay. I didn't know they had any of those.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_05 3:37

Chris and I were on land at Exmouth.

SPEAKER_07 3:39

We were could probably waving at you. Yeah, we're probably waving at you.

unknown 3:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:44

Yeah, we had a good bunch of friends who are an expert as well. Uh, and they were talking about how crazy the traffic was. Um and that's part of the reason why my parents love um seeing eclipses from cruise ships, because the logistics is all handled, right? You don't have to fight with the traffic, you don't have to, you know, get there super early.

SPEAKER_05 4:01

Right. Yeah.

unknown 4:02

Right.

SPEAKER_07 4:03

Just walk back to your room and the buffet.

SPEAKER_05 4:08

Yeah. So your father has quite a big uh anniversary coming up, doesn't he? Because this is Saros 126. Its first one was in 2008. So this is his second eclipse of the Saros.

SPEAKER_00 4:21

That's right. Um, and you know, he he didn't actually realize it until we were writing the book and we were doing the research, and that and he was like, Oh, it is. Um and I I you know that's it's one of those things that again captures perhaps the main point of the book that we're trying to make, which is that science deepens wonder. This idea that if you learn a little bit about what makes eclipses so unlikely, and and so how and the science and the work that goes into predicting them, uh then when you stand in the shadow of the moon, it truly means a little bit more.

SPEAKER_01 4:59

Indeed.

SPEAKER_05 5:00

And and I mean you guys included quite a bit in your book. I mean, for one thing, you included the story of the 1919 proof of relativity for Einstein, which is one of the famous eclipses that happened. Um the one thing that I was just reading back through it just recently just uh a few minutes ago before I got here, and the one section that I loved was the ghost in the machine where your where your dad goes through the list of technical ghosts, mistakes that haunt you. They're so avoidable, it's so easy to make to the heat of the moment. Number one, the solar filter.

SPEAKER_01 5:42

We've all struggled with that.

SPEAKER_05 5:44

Oh my god. Remembering to take the solar filter off. First time eclipse chasers and veteran chief eclipse chasers take off the solar filter at totality. And um, I love the bumped focus because that actually happened to my husband in 2023. He had the telescope set up, everything else. Perfect, it was awesome. And somehow or another, a screw came loose and it just almost dropped. I mean, he just dropped almost. And so he got it fixed. I found an Alan Ranch, I handed it to him, he got it fixed, but all his pictures just had that just a little bit out of focus.

SPEAKER_04 6:25

It was just he just and then the the dead battery.

SPEAKER_00 6:34

It's one of these things that you can you can only practice and prepare. And then you know, you charge everything the night before, and then you realize that you forgot to turn on the battery charger as well. Yeah, right, because you've got all of these things.

SPEAKER_05 6:49

And this is the one that's happened to me on a couple it happened to me on the 2020, Chris. Um, autofocus during totality. Because remember, I was trying to take a I was just trying to do video. Because I did one, I'm I'm like you, uh, or like your dad who wants to set up the camera and then just I'm not I'm watching the eclipse. I'm not paying attention to the to the camera. And I set it up and had it pointed, it looked beautiful, beautiful and good, and then it just kept autofocusing during totality. I still got some good shots. I still got some good shots with it.

SPEAKER_00 7:22

That's something that we've also learned the hard way, which is um that if you leave it on autofocus, somehow the the fading light really messes with the focus, right? And then it ends up hunting uh and trying to kind of catch on to something, but the light's changing faster than the sensors can react to it. So that's why we wanted to make sure that people, you know, try to stay away from autofocus if you can.

SPEAKER_05 7:43

Yeah. I think it I think it's just the focus is trying to autofocus on the on the corona, and the corona has no that edges. So it struggles with that.

SPEAKER_07 7:56

Kind of freaks out. But I do like, you know, we spend a lot of time on here talking with people that are like, if it's your first total solar eclipse, do not try to image it. You know, most of the experts, you know, most of the people that are that have seen plenty more than I have are just enjoy it. And then inevitably some of us have to go after that challenge. But I do like where your dad said that if something goes wrong, just drop it and forget it, and just enjoy the eclipse. And it's very difficult to do that. And but um it's it's very important. It's just like you can take as much gear, but at some point you have to surrender and just let it go. So if you had any, you know, what are some of your experiences trying to image and then uh having the the fail that you can tell us about?

SPEAKER_00 8:51

Well, I think that you know this is lovely because um of the four totalities that I've witnessed, each of them has a tiny story about um how the camera has come into play. Um and so the first one um in 2012, uh, you know, it was my first eclipse ever. And in 2012, technology wasn't great. We didn't have this wonderful iPhone. Um I think we were just on the cusp of smartphones. Um and I remember that You know, it went dark, it was beautiful, and then I had a stroke of genius. I said to myself, I need this on camera. And so I reached into my pocket and I took out my my, I think it was a crummy Android phone back then, and and the camera sensor really wasn't very good. Um and I spent, you know, maybe a good minute of totality trying to take um a picture of of the corona, which was crazy. Um, and then I set it to panorama mode and I and I got a good 360 shot uh just around the ship. And actually, that photo is included in the book. Um, because it's one of my favorite shots, because the quality wasn't green, but it captured the spirit of the woman, you know, this idea of totality at dusk. Um but I think that's one of the lessons that I took, which is don't waste your time on your phone, you know. Uh even if the technology has gotten better, uh, you know, you're just not gonna be able to get it. Um and so for the second eclipse, uh that was in 2017 that I went for, and that was in America. Uh and we saw it from IDEHOM. Uh actually, my my family, we kind of work as a camera operating team, right? So each of us gets assigned to a different device, and and we're all doing something uh in coordination with dad, who's kind of like the operations leader. Um and so for the 2017 eclipse, I was in charge of the 360 camera, which is actually a fire and forget tool, right? So um I put a link in in the book. I I'd love to send it out as well. Um, but I've got a 360 video uh of the 2017 eclipse from our vantage point. And so if you've got a VR set of goggles or even a smartphone, uh you can really stand next to us for the duration of that eclipse. Uh and again, the quality was terrible. So you'll you'll see that you know it's pixelated, it's not great. Uh we had set it on a manual focus that it tried not to hunt. Um and I did a bit of video editing as well so that we could capture the directions and point the eye at what you should be paying attention to. Um but that experience capturing uh eclipse on a 360 camera was quite interesting as well. And if you have any questions, I'd love to share more. Um in 2015.

SPEAKER_05 11:19

Well, I noticed three.

SPEAKER_07 11:21

We can share that easily. We'll put a link in here and actually we could might even be able to put some of it on our new uh video style podcast. But you won't get the effect unless you put on some VR goggles, right? Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_05 11:38

I should try to take one of those 360. It came out bad.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

I think the wonderful thing about the 360 video format was that it really showed the reaction of the people around you, which you honestly don't pay attention to when you're watching an eclipse, right? You tend to look up, you tend to look around. Um, but it's quite funny because you can see the different people fiddling with their devices, and and and you know, I always want to shout at them and say, Stop, put it down, you know. Things you can only see with the 360.

SPEAKER_05 12:10

I have a I have a magic uh a friend of mine's coming in. This will be his second, and he is into cameras, so he's he's kind of the first one he saw with us in 2024. He had his camera set up and everything that he ended up just watching. This time he's still gonna try to do that again, try to do the cameras, but I'm trying to push him to just watch it, just watch it, set it, just let it go.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

Well, I think uh we we do have a healthy obsession with trying to photograph it's important.

SPEAKER_07 12:42

So we kind of skipped over a little bit of we skipped over, you know, tell us about you, where you're from, and you're joining us from Singapore right now, and it's morning time there. So tell us a little bit about you and and your and your dad. Well, I think sure.

SPEAKER_00 12:55

Uh I I think the story of of me and and and um has to start with mom and dad, right? So um I'm uh we're here in Singapore, family's based here in Singapore. Um and mom and dad are the ones who really got into eclipse chasing. So dad is super interested in astronomy. Um and he did a master's in astronomy for fun when he retired, and that's kind of something he did. I don't I don't I don't know. It's just crazy. The idea of going back to school last year you retired to get a master's in a in something that you don't intend to use for employment.

SPEAKER_05 13:28

That's my plan. That's my plan. That's my plan. I haven't retired yet, but my plan when I retire is to go get a degree in astronomy.

SPEAKER_00 13:35

Yeah. So um Yeah, but you know, talk to my dad, he's got some pointers on how to handle for work, I'm sure. Um And so uh he did the master's in astronomy, and mom uh mom's kind of interested in travel. So eclipse chasing was the natural marriage of those two interests. This idea that the eclipse is going to take them um to all kinds of far-flung regions of the world, and they've gone really amazing places uh in the middle of the sea, um, they've gone to places they would otherwise never visit. Uh and they've been doing that since 2008.

SPEAKER_05 14:10

Um has your dad seen everyone since 2008? Or did they miss it?

SPEAKER_00 14:15

No, I don't think I don't think I don't think they're completionists. Um, I I did listen to the first episode of Totality Talks where you said you're gonna aim to go to every single eclipse team now, and and then and that's crazy. That's just amazing.

SPEAKER_05 14:29

I totally crazy. I absolutely agree. But I'm up I'm up to 21, and this will be 22 for me. I've seen every I've attempted to see everyone since 1998. And I saw my first one in 99, and I didn't have that concept then, but once I got the concept in 1998, I'm gung-ho. And Chris is the same since what 2017.

SPEAKER_07 14:51

Well, 2017 was my first total. I saw I saw a partial in 1979, and the teacher said, This won't happen again until 2017. But she meant this won't happen again in North America until 2017. But I said, Wow, if I'm alive then, I'm gonna I will go see totality. And after that, I was like, I'm not missing this ever again if I can if I can handle it, I will not miss another total total solar eclipse. So far, so good. Managed to be in the path of totality for every total solar eclipse since then, and no plans on stopping. So that's the that's the path going forward, hopefully. But uh yeah, so you took a break after 2012. Uh did you just uh could it was hard to get to for the for the how many were there?

SPEAKER_05 15:48

It was 2013 and 2015 and 2016, and they were so 2013 was in I thought try I got cluttered out in the middle of the Atlantic and it like touched Africa and then came across the Atlantic Ocean. And then 2015 was over the feet over um it was like over the North Atlantic. It was it went to the it went over I want to say Priori, Priori Islands, anyway. Faroe, yeah, the Faroe, sorry, the Faroe Islands went over the Faroe Islands and I piled a plane for that one. And then 2016 was Indonesia, which was kind of close to where you guys are, but it was it was a little rougher trip trip for me because we were in the middle of Pollen, it was just one of islands in Indonesia. Did your parents see the 2016?

SPEAKER_00 16:42

They did. Um so um mom, who is the real traveler, right? So dad is into the astronomy, mom's into traveling. Uh, and I wrote the book with dad. Um, but what I've been trying to do with mom is to create like a website or a blog experience. Um, and so it's something that's uh it's kind of a beta. It's a work in progress. We're not ready to publish it yet, but we have published it. Um so if you have time, you can check it out. It's at chasingtotality.org slash beyond, right? And and we're calling the mini site Beyond Totality, um, where I've interviewed mom and I've tried to put it together in a series of interactive stories, um, telling kind of that eclipse journey from her perspective. And you know, if you if you wanted to call her on for uh for a podcast like this, I'm sure she'd she'd love to tell you all of her stories and all these places that she's been to. Because she was on. Hold on, I'm pulling it up right now.

SPEAKER_07 17:35

She give her give her a call right now. We'll pop her on. If you're not sure.

SPEAKER_05 17:41

It's interesting you say that because one of the famous eclipse writers was the wife of a scientist eclipse trader. And I'm gonna look it up. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 17:51

Mom is definitely the one who's got stories upon stories. And and you know what I love about mom's stories is that the eclipse is often the small part. The eclipse is the reason to travel, but the experiences around the eclipse are so rich. And I think that's something that I wish on anyone who chases an eclipse. Like totality, that five minutes, or in this case maybe two minutes this year, um, are gonna be magical. But um, you know, the the for me, the magic is well beyond totality. Like that entire experience of chasing is part of it. And mom captures that beautifully. So I think she was on, let's see. Um she was on in 2016, she was at Antidori. And she's got this um lovely story about how um she went to the Sultan's Palace because apparently that opened it to the community. Um and yes, she's like a stories upon stories of experience.

SPEAKER_07 18:45

You have a wild story that that happened to you, Boy Mom.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

Wild story. Well, I think you know that comes. I mean, I'll speak from my experience. Um and in 2023, the one where we were watching the eclipse off the coast of X-Mus, uh, where you were as well, um, actually that was for me the most magical eclipse because my youngest brother um had brought his then girlfriend on the trip, and he had this magnificent plan to propose to her um at the end of totality. So the diamond ring would flash, and then he would get her one knee and present the ring to her and ask her to marry him. Um and so that's actually the third um video story, which is for that eclipse, I don't have any footage of the sky because I was busy setting up to catch that magical moment, the proposal moment, just after totality, which is crazy again, right? Like, um, but it was so fun.

SPEAKER_05 19:38

And she accepted such memories.

SPEAKER_07 19:40

Enjoy totality, though. Yes, you did get okay. It wasn't a good idea. Enjoy totality.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

Of course, she did she. I don't think you can see no at that point. You can't see no, you don't have a choice actually.

SPEAKER_05 19:51

Yeah. At the great, yeah. And that was the great one. That was a great eclipse to do it because that was the pointiest eclipse I've ever seen. It would have like seven points on the I mean, it was like a real giant diamond. That one was. I'm sorry, Chris, you're saying the conditions were amazing as well.

SPEAKER_00 20:11

So clear.

SPEAKER_07 20:12

So clearer the prominences and the chromosphere. My favorite part was the the extended chromosphere and how long it lasted on each side. You know, it seemed like it was half of the totality. You had at least some chromosphere because it was so big, you know, such a close match between the size of the sun and the relative size of the moon. That that blew me away, seeing all that pink fuchsia, uh, magenta. I don't know what what the proper color is for that hydrogen. But but that was that was the amazing part for me.

SPEAKER_05 20:50

So there's a double magical eclipse for your family. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 20:55

We called it a triple diamond ring.

SPEAKER_05 20:57

A triple diamond ring. That's good. Are they um are they married now? And that was 2023, 2026. Hopefully they got married in it. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:10

They did. They got married the following yeah. Um and and they'll be chasing the eclipse of us again this year.

SPEAKER_05 21:16

So Oh good. Excellent. It's pain. Awesome.

SPEAKER_07 21:20

So no kids yet.

unknown 21:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 21:28

Um, where is your cruise? Well, no, you said you're taking a cruise. Which where where are you taking the cruise at?

SPEAKER_00 21:33

Um well, actually we're departing out of Southampton in the UK. Um, and then it's uh and then the itinerary takes us all the way south down to Ibiza. Um and then we will catch an eclipse on the return um back towards Southampton, just off the coast of La Corona. Which I think uh there are something like almost ten ships positioning in that part of the sea, right? So we're not gonna be the only ones out there.

unknown 21:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 22:00

Several several flights. We talked to a couple people who who are going on flights too. In fact, one guy we talked to, he's actually he's actually on a cruise, but the captain's not that set on moving the ship before the eclipse. So he's actually gonna leave the cruise, go take a flight and come back. He's a little crazier than us. To me, that's pretty crazy, though.

SPEAKER_00 22:24

That's pretty crazy. So how long is the cruise? How many days? This one's 14 14 nights, I think. So how uh how many stops do you have? Um well I I didn't count, but it must be something like 10 or 9 or 10, something like that. So we're stopping in Portugal, in Lisbon, Porto, Barcelona, um, Mallorca, Dante Biza, and then Lacaruna and Dobo, I think.

SPEAKER_05 22:52

Alright, when are you gonna be able to do it?

SPEAKER_07 22:55

Mainly you're going around Spain.

SPEAKER_05 22:59

When are you gonna be in Barcelona?

SPEAKER_00 23:02

Oh gosh, I I don't know. I would have to check. I could fully.

SPEAKER_05 23:10

So I'd love to meet you in person, even with just coffee at the at the at the pier.

SPEAKER_00 23:15

Okay, sure. I'll I let's get in touch. I'll let you know. I don't have the itinerary off the cover right now.

SPEAKER_05 23:21

Okay, let me know. I was thinking there was one was one thing I noticed in your book was that you know you took a picture of all the equipment that you're taking for packing. And I noticed you have a little drone. You guys actually fly a drone during that, or you just set it and tell it to take the 360 and just leave it alone. What do you do with the drone?

SPEAKER_00 23:40

Drone. Oh so again, this looks points to the the the 2024 eclipse, uh, which we saw out of Texas. We were just north of Kerrville. I don't know if that's near you guys at all. Um but so if for that eclipse, I was to designate the drone operator. And um and so what we did was we of course did a bit of uh the standard drone photography of the landscape and stuff around. And um, we had planned to have the drone sort of fly in a giant circle. So we pre-programmed it to fly in a circle around the eclipse site, hopefully catching the eclipse chasers who were gathered in like a little paddock, um, together with the horizon and hopefully a little bit of the changing colors, because you know, the 360 sunset is one of the most amazing effects. Um that's not in the sky, it's it's around you, right? And and that's something that you need a 360 to capture. Um, and so we tried to get the drone to slip to circle the site, um, but goes to the machine, right? So um the fading sunlight really messed, I think, with the combination of the GPS as well as the sensors and the drone. And just as totality hit, the drone froze mid-air and it stopped its programming. It just refused to proceed. And I wasn't paying attention, right? Because I was watching the eclipse and I had pre-programmed it. Um and so we do have this footage where it's a really nice sweeping shot where it's going around the site, and then just as it gets dark, the drone freezes and it just captures the moment, which in itself was quite cinematic. Um, and then I think about three-quarters way through the eclipse, I picked up my controller and I realized, oh no. And then I punched in some uh, you know, try and get it to carry on his programming, and I think I manually operated it from there. Um but yeah, so that that's something that you we do with the drone as well. Um actually, I think a lot of the drone footage would be found on my dad's YouTube page. So um, you know, he's he does a great job of not just bringing us to the kids, but he also photographs it, you know, something closer to what you do, Chris. I think. Um and he's got a lot of the he does a lot of video editing uh to bring it together into kind of a a montage of something you can watch and record the clips. So I'll I'll share with you guys as well. Um it's really nice. A lot of the drone footage is gathered in there. So the drone?

SPEAKER_07 26:00

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 26:01

Go ahead. No, I was gonna say the the problem with the drones is uh I guess different countries have different regulations and you can't you you wouldn't always say that it's allowed. Um I think in the US they're particularly liberal about allowing drone usage. Um here in Singapore, though you need permit to fly it here and there. Um and so yeah, we would we would say the drone isn't some a standard kit item because if it's seeing it from a cruise ship, for example, they're not gonna let you fly a drone off the glacier, it's just not safe.

SPEAKER_07 26:29

Yeah, and that moving that moving target for your GPS for the drone to come home. Home is now over that way from where you launched it. So it's it's a mess.

SPEAKER_05 26:46

I would I would say the drone going up and then the ship moving and then it gets out of range and the drone just crashes to the ocean.

SPEAKER_00 26:55

Stay up and a disposable drone, right?

SPEAKER_05 26:58

Yeah, it had to be a disposable drone, it would be that.

SPEAKER_07 27:03

So did the drone just do you think that it uh it had a an issue um in mid-air during totality, or did do you think you hit some kind of limit and the it uh the FAA limit or something and it was stopped programmatically, or did it just freak out?

SPEAKER_00 27:25

Well, I think that um we had done enough dry runs and practice shots that this was not a technical limitation uh of the drone and the programming at the time. Um my suspicion is that some interference related to GPS, uh, which I guess is this is scientifically explainable, right? So there was some interference with regards to GPS, probably some interference with regards to lighting. Um, and the combination of uh of the device being too smart and trying to solve its own problems caused it to stop. Which is quite typical of technology these days. You know, it's it's too smart and then stalls.

SPEAKER_07 28:02

Too smart, yeah. In totality, you have to eliminate as many unknowns as as possible. And it's you know, it's not the known unknowns, and not it's the unknown unknowns. Things that come up that you didn't expect and you couldn't have known that that end up getting it, and that's when you have to just drop it and go. Yeah, that's it's tough, it's tough to really put those things together and enjoy totality. So I've gotten better at uh gearing down. You know, I spent a couple of eclipses gearing up, gearing up, gearing up. And Fred Espinak was telling us about how he had like 17 rigs going at one time, and two of them didn't work or something, you know, he was just and it's amazing that that guy could get that many rigs going. But uh, so what is your plan for your rig and your father? What is his plan for gear for 2026?

SPEAKER_00 29:06

You know, we haven't actually sat down to discuss the operations and planning of this yet. Um, but if I go by every eclipse that I've gone with that before, um there is going to be a detailed briefing, there is gonna be a spreadsheet, there's gonna be assignments of tasks, there's gonna be a whole setup. So um usually that rig includes um uh, of course, something directed at the sun. Hopefully, one for video, one for photo, because try and get as much as possible. Um he's also quite uh we've also got cameras pointing uh facing us, so to catch front on, see what's behind us, and we have one camera behind us to see what's in front of us. Um I think this year we're gonna be on a cruise ship, so we probably won't do the drone. Um, but we will bring the 360 camera to try and capture that experience from a cruise ship as well. So usually I think that's one, two, three, four, five cameras, uh five setups. Um and then, of course, we've got whoever else is doing the ad hoc kind of smartphone footage. Because nowadays, I think the best thing you can do with a smartphone is just put a small tripod, leave it, put it to the side, set it on record, and then enjoy totality, right? That's the best way to do it. Yep. Walk away. And if you set it on like a wide lens.

unknown 30:24

Yep.

SPEAKER_05 30:25

Wide lens and it'll track out. If you focus on the sun, it'll track out.

unknown 30:29

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:30

Nowadays, if you set it to like uh the wide lens and you just leave it there, I think for most people you're almost guaranteed to get some footage that you'd like to use. Um, even if it's not of the corona, because you're unlikely to image that with your camera anyway, but you're gonna get the atmosphere and the change of lighting that I think is what you're trying to capture anyway.

SPEAKER_06 30:48

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 30:49

For anybody who is trying to do that with their phone, the key things are to turn off the autofocus and uh try to turn off the auto brightness. And if you can get those two things under your manual control and disengaged, you'll have a lot more success.

SPEAKER_05 31:07

That's important because if you don't do that, then you don't get the light changes because the camera's constantly adjusting for the change in light. So the bright one looks just like the the dark one.

SPEAKER_07 31:20

Once again, we don't recommend it, but if you do, if you do, but don't be holding the camera up and trying to take pictures of it with your hand. Get it set up on a tripod, get away from it. Yeah. But you'll have an interesting time on a cruise ship, but you've done the cruise ship eclipse before, so you know you know that you're on a moving, moving platform which changes everything. I I don't know. I I try to implement a gimbal for the only eclipse cruise I've ever done in 2021. Do you guys try to have you tried to do anything like that? Or do you just put it on a one-legged tripod and try to point it around with the with the ship moving about?

SPEAKER_00 32:03

I think one of the trade-offs that we've be um that that makes is that you know we zoom up so that we can accommodate for a bit of that movement of the ship. Um, so you won't get as high a magnification a shot as you could get if you won then with the stability. Uh it's just a trade-off you're the make million ship. Um I think there's no way around it.

SPEAKER_07 32:22

Yeah. Well, you've got some amazing images in your book, and I'm kind of curious how you accomplished such precise imaging from a ship. Um, I guess those are super quick images when you're taking it, but you've got great chromosphere uh from 2023, I believe that image is from. Yeah. And I'm curious if that was handheld, tripod. How did you pull that off?

SPEAKER_00 32:49

Um, so most of the photography is done by my my dad and my brother. So uh I've got two brothers. Uh the youngest one is the one who proposed. Um, and the second brother, the one who's in in between both of us, um, is the one who operates the camera and rigged the dad. Um and so I I didn't do any of the photo editing, so I can't speak to the technical aspect of it. Um but I do know that it's uh it's there's a lot of manual processing at the end of the day, like in on Tony on the different exposures. Um that's something that dad does quite a lot. Yeah, all of these are all dads.

SPEAKER_05 33:22

I know. That's beautiful. That's beautiful. He took he got beautiful shots. And I recognize it, the I recognize one of the one in 2023, because that I recognize that eclipse all the time. Like in 2023.

SPEAKER_07 33:34

I remember that prominence. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 33:36

I remember that point. Seven point seven-pointed eclipse. My first and only so far, seven-pointed eclipse. But but it was such a good one just because it was at the high it was getting close to um sun maximum. And I think sun maximum of 2025, it's coming down finally, but they're still not even sure.

SPEAKER_00 34:02

Well, after all the eclipses these two years, I think I've got to be pretty good. So especially next year.

SPEAKER_05 34:08

So how early does how early before the eclipse will the will your dad be on the ship staking out his spot? Putting out tape.

SPEAKER_00 34:18

Um, well, you know, every time I've done this dad, I've always felt that he was a little bit uh he likes to go really early. Uh, but that's because he wants a really good spot, right? And so uh I wouldn't be surprised if uh even though the eclipse this time only happens near sunset, um he's gonna he's gonna be out there from noon onwards, I think. He's gonna go early. He's gonna he's either gonna go early or he's gonna ask one of us to go early, you know? Because that's the that's the benefit of having children. You just send them off to you go stand them in that spot, make sure that no one takes it so I can try and fight this.

SPEAKER_05 34:56

Yeah. You guys, you guys, you guys can just gonna do rotated shifts, right? Just your turn, your turn, tag you in, tag you out.

unknown 35:04

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 35:05

I've been on cruises with Fred and uh Fred Aspedek, and he was one of those guys out. He staked out, he like taped down the lines and you know, seriously, don't come here. You know, it's very, very serious photography. One of my favorite videos by him was that he he did that background shot that you're talking about where your dad's putting the camera behind you to get that. He did that when at the 2024 eclipse. Was it 25? It might be the 2017 eclipse, and you can just see him just running around taking, you know, having all the shots during everything. It was just crazy. It was crazy. It was beautiful. Actually, it was he wasn't running around during totality, but you could see him, he was doing the video of him setting everything up. Big root that he's headset up.

SPEAKER_00 35:54

For us, we we haven't really done the taping and and sort of reserving our space. Um, something that I feel quite strongly about this idea that the eclipse brings the community together. You know, this idea that um we don't really want that private space because I love it when somebody else comes by and says, Oh, do you mind if I take a look? Um, what's going on with your rig? You know, as long as you don't kick the tripod, right? Because that's probably why you want to keep people away. Don't kick my tripod. That happens. But I it happens, right? Yeah. Or they stand in front of a camera. Oh, you know. But we do, we do, I I particularly enjoy this idea of you know people coming together and and seeing what you've got and and and of course learning from each other. That that's part of the whole eclipse chase, right? The community of eclipse chasers, the the people, the faces that you might recognize. Because I mean, I've only done this four times, and I I think every once in a while I see someone and I'm like, I might have seen before.

SPEAKER_05 36:53

Well, you had a, I forget what the what the thing was that you said about when you plan for an eclipse, you had like a little thing of it, but the last of it was doing outreach.

unknown 37:05

That's right.

SPEAKER_05 37:06

That you plan for your eclipse, it's location. It was location, weather, safety, or log I mean safety, logistics, budget. But a lot part of it was outreach, is that you like to include outreach in it.

SPEAKER_00 37:21

That's right. Now it's uh dad's uh what he's calling the PadCore framework, uh, which is path accessibility, yeah. Path, accessibility, duration, cloud cover, and outreach, right? Uh and you know, as dad shares, uh outreach has become more important after he's seen um several eclipses because um now I think a part of it is just bringing more people along in the journey. And that's really something that's come through for this 2026 eclipse. So uh if I could just tell you guys the brief timeline, mom and dad started chasing in 2008. And then in 2012, I happened to have a lot of annual leave accrues for the year, and I said, you know what, I'll I'll use it all and join you guys. And so I went with mom and dad, kind of a first tag along child. Um, it wasn't a child, I was 21st years old, right? But I tagged along with them in 2012. And then in 2017, um, we said, you know what, this is gonna be it's gonna be over America. I mean, it's the most accessible of clips we will ever encounter. Or that's what we said at the time that of course it happened again in 2024. So 2017 we said it's gonna be so accessible. So the whole family went, right? So um, mom, dad, and the three boys, we went on that adventure together into the middle of Idaho. And then in um in 2023, when we went to Australia, some friends joined us, you know, and the group size increased from five of us to now plus one girlfriend, our wife. Uh, and the group, I think, swelled to about 10 people. And this time in 2026, um, our group size has expanded to 12 of us traveling from Singapore for the goods. Um, and we're meeting up with um with more friends from around the world who are all we're gonna congregate, we're gonna beat on the ship. Right. And I think our our group size is something like 16 now of us who have come together just to do this.

unknown 39:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:13

So and so our reaching community is a big part of it.

SPEAKER_05 39:17

Yeah. Well, I mean, but so one of the things that if you were doing a land cruise, um Janine Francis is actually doing a meetup in Saragossa. And then I'm I'm now working to include that in our crew in our plan to make sure that we look for the meetup and meet up there.

SPEAKER_03 39:36

And I'm hoping I'm hoping to get some mics and everything else and talk to people or they're get some good recordings. We'll see. We'll see how it goes. That'll be fun.

SPEAKER_05 39:45

It's always good. It'll be fun. But you you'll start seeing a lot of the same people, especially if you're doing the cruise, because there's a lot of people that do tend to stick to the eclipse cruises, which I think is cool too. I like the eclipse cruises. I've done several. And have you already guys started making plans for 2027?

SPEAKER_00 40:04

Oh, I I'm I haven't made any plans for 2027, but I'm very sure Bom's got a couple of tabs open on her browser. Uh, and she's like probably got some ideas. And and she knows that she can't she can't pitch the idea until we've done this one, right? So she's got it all ready. And I'm I'm very sure halfway through the trip when somebody says, Oh, this was so fun, we should do it again, and she's gonna be like, I have it all here. Yes or no?

SPEAKER_07 40:31

Probably has the itinerary, just hasn't told you yet.

SPEAKER_05 40:33

She hasn't told you yet, yeah. Yeah, that's another cruise-worthy one because it's gonna be over the Mediterranean. Yeah, there's a lot of things.

SPEAKER_00 40:40

Although I think if if I was but if we're going to see the one in Egypt next year, then I certainly would aim to try and see it from the desert where you have almost zero cloud cover. It's almost a perfect kind of opportunity to get such long duration and perfect skies.

SPEAKER_07 40:58

It's long and straight up. Like 87 degrees or something crazy like that.

SPEAKER_03 41:06

You're just gonna have light.

SPEAKER_00 41:09

And if for whatever reason you get clouded out next year and you're seeing it from the desert and you get clouded out, the fact that you got clouded out is gonna be more magical, actually, because that's probably rarer. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 41:22

Actually, the risk is not clouding out, the crit the risk is sandstorm. There's a sandstorm.

SPEAKER_00 41:31

That's gonna be even more terrifying.

SPEAKER_05 41:32

Yeah, that was gonna be there's there's there's a sandstorm, Richard. Not the risk of the clouds, it's sandstormed. But um, it we're I'm looking at, and then it's gonna be back in Australia in 2030. So you can all be back in your neck of the wood, and that should be a pretty good trip for you and your family to get to. Because that one comes all the way across Australia from one end to the other.

SPEAKER_00 41:54

Yeah. And so, I mean that that speaks as to why there's a gap in my eclipse resume. Uh, I guess simple truth is that uh for most people who are working, it's not easy to accumulate the leave and and the financial resources to keep chasing eclipses, right? So you're gonna save a little bit in terms of your annual leave and of your vacation days, you know, save to the budget, then they can afford to do something more fun.

SPEAKER_05 42:18

Uh it's it's uh it's also very hard for those who really should be considering retirement and can't because you've spent all her money on total way cliff changing through her life and just gotta have to keep working.

unknown 42:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 42:32

So uh what is your favorite part of the book?

SPEAKER_00 42:35

My favorite part of the whole book um is the section divider. Um, I think it's on the last part of the book where I've got a photo of me, dad, and mom at that first eclipse that I ever saw. And for me, that's that's what captures the magic of the eclipse because um you know I I see the magic in it and I want people to experience that joy. Uh, but more than just seeing an eclipse, I want them to be able to see an eclipse with the people that they enjoy seeing it with. I think that's gonna be a lot more magical. Yeah, so my favorite part is that photo, right? Um it's me, mom, and dad. I'm in that red and white striped shirt, which which I still have to this day, right? Uh and and yeah, that's the memory photo.

SPEAKER_01 43:25

That's right, we'll post it. We'll put it on here.

SPEAKER_04 43:28

Okay, we'll put we'll put a we'll post it. We'll post it. That's great though.

SPEAKER_05 43:35

That's great. I had my parents were with me for the 2017 and they were with me for the 2024. I was glad to be able to show this. And then this one's very special to me because my sister, who is actually taking care of my parents, is coming with us. And I'm I'm covering part of her cost because she needs the break. She's been I mean, she's she it's a lot of work helping my parents out. And um, my nephew's just joining me, my brother, my sister-in-law, another good couple of good friends are joining us. And so it's it's going to be just a nice it's going to be just a very very nice get together with friends and family. And that's one of the things that's one of the reasons I made the decision not to go to Iceland. Because the cost for my husband and I to go to Iceland on a cruise is comparable to me bringing fans and friends and family with me and subsidizing part of it. So I'd I'd just rather just share this eclipse with them and and go from there.

SPEAKER_00 44:35

No, it's just truly amazing how dad and mom's interests and passion has kind of sparked this opportunity for the people who are in their orbit, you know, to kind of hear a little bit more about eclipses and get into it and come and chase it with us if you really want it. So one of the one of my favorite little jokes is coming out of this entire experience is when we knew that we wanted to go on this eclipse chasing trip for 2026, I created a PowerPoint deck. I call it my eclipse pitch deck. And at every gathering of friends and family I would say guys can I do a sales pitch? And I'll send you guys the link. It's really funny but I have this PowerPoint deck where you can you can flip through and you can sort of see what what this whole journey is. Picture it as a holiday pitch as an experience. So I think it's funny I I don't know if you know this but Singaporeans love so obsessed with with eating. And so after doing this presentation a couple of times I started putting more emphasis on food in my slides. So when you receive it you'll see that I've put like the menus from the cruise ship on the slides because I realized that the Singaporeans who were watching were looking at this presentation were more convinced by the variety of food than they were by the eclipse.

SPEAKER_05 45:54

That's good.

SPEAKER_07 45:55

That's good and we'll be serving and we'll be serving and we'll be serving we had a chef on one of the cruise ships that made a you know sometimes they'll make eclipse type dishes and you had a dessert and was a little cookie over some ice cream and had the eclipse going on.

SPEAKER_03 46:14

I saw five I've drank it I've drank many a eclipse drink on a on a cruise ship. You just can't have too many of them because those those are the ones I'm not used to.

SPEAKER_07 46:24

Well you you have a little spot in here about describing totality and so I'm kind of curious how you would describe totality. What's your favorite way of describing it?

SPEAKER_00 46:36

My favorite way of describing totality is you know it feels like a sudden sunset and a sudden sunrise and just experiencing that very very quickly is is part of the magic experience right the day going dark and practical.

SPEAKER_07 47:00

This time I've never done really a sunset it's always gotten brighter after the lowest one I've ever seen was 2019 at about 16 or 17 degrees high in Argentina. But I'm kind of curious how it's going to be when it you know if it will get any type of you know bright after how bright will it get and after totality at six degrees high? I'm not sure I have no idea what to expect.

SPEAKER_00 47:32

I'm actually quite worried I'm quite worried that um you know it's going to be so low on the horizon that all of these other problems that we have not prepared for and that we have not imagined are going to start to show up. Oh I wonder whether or not the atmospheric distortion is going to just mess up that entire you know what we usually like to photograph but it's going to be really difficult.

SPEAKER_05 47:58

You might you might get a pretty it might be pretty dramatic because it might you might also get that that sunrise and sunset effect where the sun gets bigger. I'm looking forward to seeing the the partial going be having it set in partial. I'm really curious to see how seeing how that's going to look like because I saw it I saw something similar in 2010 and then tw 2002 but the sum I think in 2022 2022 the I just really couldn't see the the partial setting I don't know it's because of how it was where it was I think it's both in both aspects in both places there was a horizon higher than the horizon so right after totality it dropped pretty quick.

SPEAKER_01 48:53

Did you get that in 2019?

SPEAKER_07 48:56

You were on the other side of the mountains from where I was at but we had it set in behind the Andes in partial and the you know we had the going behind a mountain and you had two sides of the sun chopped off with the partial it's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_05 49:12

I really didn't catch the partial at the sunset tell your mom she needs to look up the lady Mabel Lomas Todd she was she wrote a book Total Eclipses back in the late 1800s because she followed her husband around taking eclipses so your mom should take after her I'll send you a link over to her okay all right yep that'd be really cool.

SPEAKER_00 49:41

Thank you both for for really doing you know um totality talks I honestly I had had not heard of the the podcast until the teacher reached out to me but I I'm listening to every episode now and I wish I had it I had access of yeah right because you know it's so nice what you guys are doing this idea of telling the stories and bring it together bring it to life well awful lot interesting thank you yeah thank you thank you thank you it's um it's been a lot of fun and what spawned it was we were getting ready for an eclipse in I guess 2023 well it's 2023 and 2024 we started in 2023 I think yeah because I think we were trying to get to Xmouth for that trip but I was going around looking and trying to find podcasts I was like okay surely there's a a total solar eclipse podcast out there I want to get all the information I can it's got to be out there and all we found were podcasts that had an eclipse episode but not fully focused you know there were some great some great popular podcasts out there that did you know an eclipse uh episode but nobody was focused on it it's because it's just very so it's so niche and small and tiny and so we're like you know we should do it we can't find one to listen to we'll just make one and and we've been we've been very lucky we've had some greats on here we've had some greats we've had Fred Espinach um gosh lots of other people and we have had a really good list here yeah if you're going through them um one of my favorites is the Kate Russo two parter and she spent some time in Australia she's originally Australian I believe she's Australian she lives there now she lives there yeah she's a lot of time in in uh in the UK but uh it's one of my favorites because she goes through the whole psychology of it so I think you'll enjoy that one if you're going through um uh it's one of my favorites and listen to them all yeah I think her book is totally addicted uh being in the shadow yeah there's total addiction total addiction yeah her she has her first book was total addiction other than being in the shadow is her second one yeah that's a great book so do you have any other questions you were itching to ask there Letritia no I think we covered everything I mean I love the book I it was it's definitely focused on the 2026 and has a lot of great hit hints for everybody there's newbies as well as people who are willing to try something else like I said that my favorite chapter was that that ghost the ghost chapter I just started laughing like oh no reliving the moment yeah the batteries out there so my my ghost one is the fact that I bought a brand new but this was 2003 so I bought a brand new video recorder so the tech was nowhere near to where it is now but I bought a brand new video recorder we tried it out we worked on it and everything else and then I could not get it to work on the plane we were flying over Antarctica and I couldn't get it to work on the plane and just failed at that my good camera didn't work the best picture I have is from a point and shoot shoot that my my husband took just a point and shoot and but it's this beautiful um when the eclipse is in the sky and you see the shadow on the ice and beyond the shadow you see the sun on the on the ice it's just this wonderful picture but again point and shoot I think it was still film packed I think it was a film point and shoot the best picture I got out of that one. You know and that and that makes me think of you know how technology will advance and how it will change the way chasing eclipses right because I think it's just a matter of time before someone comes up with a dedicated piece of eclipse camera you know eclipse eclipse technology something like that and that might make it so much um easier to do but also it would take away what makes it so mystical and magical right stuffage sort of technology I don't know if I agree with that just because I think the more you learn the more it's mystical and magical I mean when you when you delve into the math and everything else it just increases the wonder it's like oh my god all these things are happening all at once and the the orbital dynamics and everything to me it increases the wonder of it all um and and that just makes to me it makes that experience just more just deeper so the tech also lets you relive the experience a little bit better than than the experience itself.

SPEAKER_05 54:50

I don't know that we'll ever get to you know full sensory that you I could I could do a show and have the give everybody the the eclipse experience I don't think that that technology is that's a long long way off I found the magic first and then you know I got the magic the first time that's why I I got hooked on chasing them you know then brought in the oh well maybe I can capture this and you know you can try but uh we try it's just it's just so difficult it it's just not meant you know you can't capture magic you know you can't capture the mystery and magic with the camera it's just yeah I try to gear down now it's one of my new transitions but not going very good but I'm trying Chris what does your rig look like yeah I mean what what do you guys know I'm sure you've got different setups um but what is that like I I have two iPads and my iPhone and I put them on I mount them point them for video and put them on record one of them I put on well here's Chris this is Chris's he puts his on he put his i he I put it on record and just go watch my husband's I'll let you Chris show that and let me see if I can hook up I don't think I could hook up my camera up here no I can't show you my husband's is actually already set up in the great room because he's fiddling with it.

SPEAKER_07 56:23

Yep now's the time to fiddle with it. Yeah he's fiddling with it right now yeah you guys better get your uh you better get your uh spreadsheet and your checklist going and gear check you know yeah it's starting to get into crunch time it's starting mine's starting already so basically I just have a camera and a lens and I've downsized my lens over the over the years uh for travel it's just tough to travel with a bunch of stuff yeah I've got friends that they don't care they take the they take the gear and they take the big huge tripods and but um I run it off of a I've got a computer that plugs into the camera and it's a I use a program called set in c and it's like a solar clip timer uh and basically you set up your exposures and the time and you get it set up with you know universal time and you find out exactly where you're at with the uh with your coordinates and then it um and then it fires off automat fires off automatically based on um you know the events so partials obviously and then about uh 15 seconds before for a second contact it starts firing off pictures and then it automatically adjusts the um uh exposure time and I keep the same ISO pretty much and it just automatically hits it and then when totality hits it takes a bracket and if it's a long one I'll try to capture another bracket maybe and then it's at third contact it starts doing the same thing and starts capturing uh trying to catch some chromosphere trying to catch some promise prominences and then obviously it changes the uh exposure time to try to capture diamond ring after C3 and so conceive you know it it worked pretty good in 2024 I booked went over and just looked re breathed on it wrong and the focus went out for third contact but I got some good stuff yeah for and do you have to do the manual there's a ghost removal there's that ghost yeah it's a quick uh you know a quick uh off and that's it that's the only touching don't touch it don't look at it and of course I had to go look and see if it was working and that's when yeah that's when everything falls apart yeah but that just keep it that simple yeah I had I had three or four different things going on in in 2019 and 2020 and it just kind of slow you know learned how to gear down and just enjoy the event that's what I do too I do too too I think so well thank you so much for your time Jared thank you for putting the book out there for everyone yeah thank you I mean that's that's the one of the best yes chasing totality it the outreach the outreach that this that this group does that everybody that's a fuller eclipse chaser that just automatically just wants to share the love with everybody so I appreciate you take you and your dad taking time to write a book to put it together yes fantastic thank you so much for kind words and thank you so much for having me on that's it for this episode of Totality Talks in the next episode we welcome back the eclipse weather expert eclipsophile jay anderson as always clear sky