Passengers of Alaska Airlines Flight 870 were treated with an astronomical spectacle on Tuesday as they luckily witnessed the only solar eclipse this year straight from their plane windows in a very strategic location.
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About a dozen astronomers and “eclipse chasers” were among the 163 passengers onboard Flight 870 from Anchorage to Honolulu, according to Alaskan Airlines’ blog.
The University of Arizona’s Steward Observatory’s Glenn Schneider organized the new plan for the flight and Rao presented them to airline officials, who moved the departure time to 25 minutes later.
This beats an inflight movie every time. The eclipse will only be visible in parts of southeast Asia and the North Pacific Ocean, including the flight path of the Alaska Airlines flight.
In the three minute video you can hear Kentrianakis’ excitement and hoots and hollering from his fellow passengers as totality approaches and passes with views from 35,000 feet.
“The key to success here is meeting some very tight time constraints – specific latitudes and longitudes over the ocean”, Andersen said in a statement.
If you give an astronomer a telescope they will make great discoveries, if you give a group of veteran astronomers an airplane in the path of a total solar eclipse they will freak out.
It’s a rare event when the moon is close enough to Earth to completely block out the sun.
Rao, who has seen “only” 10 total eclipses, said there are major perks to seeing an eclipse from cruising altitude.
The list of eclipse watchers goes on: Dan McGlaun (seat 8F) is bringing 200 pairs of tinted glasses for everyone on the plane, and Evan Zucker (seat 1F) and his wife Paula Eisenhart (2F) have “Here Comes the Sun” queued up to play as the eclipse is ending.
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“You [also] get a chance to see the moon’s shadow sweeping across the landscape”.
