By Dan Hicks

Cash-infused Cranbrookers wishing to enjoy our complete October 14 annular solar eclipse in its full flaming ring-of-fire glory have a choice of tropical locales along the ecliptical path of annularity.

They can fly southward to romantic destinations below the Tropic of Cancer such as Mexico’s marvellous Yucatán Peninsula on the Caribbean coast, or venture even further south, below the equator itself to the Brazilian seaside city of João Pessoa, capital of Paraíba State on the Atlantic coast (see photo above).

Paradisial getaway places aside, a more practical plan for most of us will be to remain home and enjoy our significant 75% partial eclipsing of the sun’s solar diameter by the moon.

My distribution of Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (RASC) Solar Viewers may have slightly heightened local awareness (ever so slightly), but the ultimate Cranbrookian public ecliptical engagement would be for our capable College of the Rockies astronomical staff to deliver an up close telescopic perspective of this dramatic alignment of heavenly bodies in our daytime sky; a radical conceptual departure from conventional Cranbrook which I have advanced to COTR President Paul Vogt directly.

Our next opportunity to view a solar eclipse is over five years away – January 14 of 2029, a partial solar eclipse in all its coverage (neither total nor annular anywhere), a day likelier to be colder and cloudier here than October 14 of 2023 (Saturday).

Lead image: João Pessoa – Paraíba State capital and Atlantic Ocean, Brazil. February 1, 2018. The palm trees are swaying, caressed by a balmy onshore breeze. João Pessoa is land’s end for the October 14 annular solar eclipse path of annularity. Cacio Murilo. wikipedia.org

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