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The Eclipse Chaser

The Daily

The New York Times

News, Daily News

4.597.8K Ratings

🗓️ 8 April 2024

⏱️ 30 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Today, millions of Americans will have the opportunity to see a rare total solar eclipse. Fred Espenak, a retired astrophysicist known as Mr. Eclipse, was so blown away by an eclipse he saw as a teenager that he dedicated his life to traveling the world and seeing as many as he could. Mr. Espenak discusses the eclipses that have punctuated and defined the most important moments in his life, and explains why these celestial phenomena are such a wonder to experience. Guest: Fred Espenak, a.k.a. “Mr. Eclipse,” a former NASA astrophysicist and lifelong eclipse chaser.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

Can you hear me?

0:02.0

Fred, can you hear me?

0:04.0

The internet is a little wonky.

0:08.0

Okay.

0:09.0

Well, excuse me.

0:12.0

I'm on Amazon, so, the internet, I'm in Arizona, so the United States is very fast.

0:17.0

I think we're going to call you, I think we're going to call you back on a, for the first time and a really long time a landline.

0:23.0

Okay.

0:24.0

Hey Fred, it's Michael Barbarrow.

0:30.0

Hi. You can hear me okay? I can hear you. Perfect. So Fred where exactly am I reaching you?

0:40.6

I'm in portal Arizona in a little community called Arizona Sky Village.

0:47.0

And it's a very rural community, so our internet and phone lines are not very good,

0:53.0

and the nearest grocery store is 60 miles away.

0:56.0

Wow, and why would you choose to live in such a remote place with such bad internet?

1:03.3

Because the sky is dark.

1:05.1

It's like the sky was 100 years ago before cities and crouched down all of the country.

1:10.4

I guess you'd call it an astronomy development,

1:13.0

mainly amateur astronomers who have built homes here far from city lights

1:18.0

for the express purpose of studying the sky.

1:31.0

So it's literally a community where once the sun goes down, it's pitch black and some, perhaps all of you are

1:33.2

stargazing.

1:35.2

Yes, exactly.

...

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