‘Changed forever’: One of the greatest immersive natural wonders is coming to Exmouth

On a sweltering day in 1922, two 21-year-old women strapped a telescope to the side of a car and travelled more than 900 kilometres through the Australian bush to photograph a total solar eclipse.

During the journey the car became bogged, and Miriam Chisholm and Freda Tindal lost four days of travel to bad weather, but they managed to make it in time to see the natural phenomenon.

The pair were two of the few women to publish a report of the eclipse, alongside the observations of the mostly male members of the British Astronomical Association.

The eclipse helped prove Einstein’s theory of general relativity – the idea mass causes space to curve around it.

Miriam Chisholm and her father Frank, who helped alter the car specifically for his daughter’s trip north to view a total solar eclipse. The image has been colourised.Credit: Goulburn District Historical and Genealogical Society

More than 100 years later, the desire to see and to study solar eclipses in Australia has not waned.

Dr Toner Stevenson, an honorary historian from the University of Sydney and manager of the Sydney Observatory, has travelled to six different total solar eclipses around the world.

Now she plans to watch her seventh – joining 18,000 others from around the world in Exmouth on Thursday.

“Once you’ve seen a total solar eclipse, you are changed for life. It’s such an incredible experience,” she said.

“That 1922 eclipse changed science forever. That’s something I don’t think is really understood.”

Stevenson and co-author Nick Lomb have written a book titled Eclipse Chasers, documenting the history of solar eclipses and the stories of those who dedicate their lives to studying them.

A solar eclipse photographed by Hulbert in 2012. The ‘diamond ring’ of light marked the start and conclusion of totality.Credit: Melissa Hulbert

“For me, that was my driving force, to tell the stories of the women and the First Nation’s people and their contribution to understanding this phenomenon which has not really been documented before,” she said.

“It’s also a look into the adventure behind chasing eclipses, and the reasons people do it.

“Witnessing an eclipse really makes you reflect on our place in the universe. It’s not just the visual. It’s the whole body experience – the temperature changes, the light changes, everything goes still and quiet, even the animals.”

So, what exactly is a solar eclipse?

A solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between the earth and the sun and can be predicted hundreds of years in advance using mathematics.

“One of the lovely quirks of nature is that the sun is 400 times larger than the moon, but 400 times further away,” astronomer and astro-photographer Melissa Hulbert said.

“The sun and the moon have the same size, the same angular diameter in the sky of about half a degree, and that allows that perfect alignment to allow for a total solar eclipse.”

A map showing the trajectory of five total solar eclipses which will be visible in Australia between 2023 and 2038. Credit: Eclipse Chasers

Hulbert said generally there was a total solar eclipse each year.

“The nice thing is people in Australia will be able to see five over the next 15 years, whereas normally, we have to travel to all parts of the world,” she said.

“A total eclipse is, at most, only visible under a track a few hundred kilometres wide. For the Exmouth eclipse, that track will only be about 40 kilometres wide. It is therefore unusual to see so many in one country.”

There has not been a series of total eclipses visible in Australia in such a short time frame for over 100 years.

“This coming eclipse is a really special one, it’s a hybrid eclipse, a rare type of eclipse, only seven out of 224 that will occur this century will be one,” Hulbert said.

A hybrid eclipse starts out as an ‘annular eclipse’, which means the moon does not fully cover the sun and causes a ‘ring of fire’ to form around the outside of the moon.

It will then move to a total eclipse, blocking all light, before moving back to an annular eclipse at the end.

First Nations people have long predicted solar eclipses

Stevenson said First Nations Australians had long been able to predict when eclipses would occur.

“They have generational observational records that aren’t written down like in western science. It is documented in their own cultural methods, whether it is in song, dance, storytelling, memory, stories passed down through generations,” she said.

“There is ample evidence that Aboriginal people ... had observational powers and skills, and memories that have been passed through generations, describing when solar eclipses have happened before.

“The stories vary depending on which group they come from. For example, they can be about a man, described as the moon and a woman as the sun.

“It shows a clear link between culture and scientific observations.”

The pair have both contributed to the book, available at the WA Museum alongside the specialised glasses needed to view the eclipse.Credit: Holly Thompson

Without their help, Stevenson says, western research and what it has helped prove would not be possible.

Hulbert, who will see her 10th solar eclipse in Exmouth, said experiencing one was something that changes you.

“It’s one of the greatest immersive natural wonders that we can see on earth,” she said.

“I think the idea of seeing something you may only have a few chances to see in a lifetime is part of why thousands of people are coming to Exmouth to watch.”

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