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  • Australian Sky & Telescope

    Going to extremes in the Moon’s shadow

    Apr 06, 2022 5 minutes
    by Michael Nelmes

    MANY ASTRONOMY BUFFS have a ‘must do or see’ list that they hope to complete. The hobby offers infinite possibilities, but to the strange breed called solar eclipse chasers (such as myself) one of these goals is to stand in the Moon’s shadow on every continent.

    Antarctica, due to its polar position, sees fewer total solar eclipses than the other continents. Currently just one Saros cycle (the 18-year periods over which eclipses with similar geometries repeat), Saros 152, presents us with total solar eclipses in Antarctica: in 2003, 2021 and 2039. In 2003 a small number of people — those at a Russian research station and another group who hitched a month-long ride on a Russian icebreaker — were fortunate to be the first known humans to experience a total solar eclipse from the white continent.

    The eclipse path of December 4, 2021 was somewhat

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