How to use lockdown to plan for the ‘Polar Solar Eclipse’

A once-in-a-lifetime kind of totality is coming next year

On December 4, 2021 a total solar eclipse will come to Antarctica. Sure, few people are booking tickets for cruises at the moment, but if lockdown is good for one thing then it’s making plans for future trips you just know you’re going to want to do.

So I thought it was about time I began writing about it. Published last month in the BBC Sky At Night magazine is my first article about how to watch the eclipse from Antarctica in 2021, including interviews with Fred Espenak, retired NASA astrophysicist and eclipse-chaser also known as ‘Mr Eclipse’, and Babak Tafreshi, an astrophotographer and founder of The World at Night.

Whatever happens it’s going to be very exciting.”

Fred Espenak

Jamie Carter, editor of WhenIsTheNextEclipse.com, will be lecturing onboard Albatross Expeditions’ cruise ship ‘Ocean Victory’ during the 2021 solar eclipse.

“At just five to 10 degrees above the horizon it will be quite an amazing event to see the sun so low in the sky during a total eclipse,” says Espenak. “Whatever happens it’s going to be very exciting.”

Pic credit: © Albatross Expeditions