Road Atlas for the Total Solar Eclipse of 2017 - Color Edition [By Espenak]

Title: Road Atlas for the Total Solar Eclipse of 2017 - Color Edition
Author(s): Fred Espenak
Other Info: 8.5" by 11", 50 pages, Paperback, 0.88 lb item wt.

On Monday, 2017 August 21, a total eclipse of the Sun will be visible from the contiguous United States for the first time since 1979. The track of the Moon's umbral shadow begins in the Pacific Ocean and crosses the USA from west to east through Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and North and South Carolina. Inside the 70-mile-wide path of totality, the Moon will completely cover the Sun as the landscape is plunged into an eerie twilight and the Sun's glorious corona is revealed for nearly 3 minutes. Outside the narrow shadow track, a partial eclipse will be visible from all of North America.

The Road Atlas for the Total Solar Eclipse of 2017 contains a comprehensive series of 37 full color maps of the path of totality across the USA. The large scale (1:700,000 or 1 inch = 11 miles) shows both major and minor roads, towns and cities, rivers, lakes, parks, national forests, wilderness areas and mountain ranges.

The path of totality on each map is depicted as a lightly shaded region with the northern and southern limits clearly identified. The total eclipse can only be seen inside this path. The closer one gets to the central line of the path, the longer the total eclipse lasts. Gray lines inside the path mark the duration of the total eclipse in 20 second steps. This makes it easy to estimate the duration of totality from any location in the eclipse path.

Yellow lines running across the path at 2-minute intervals indicate the local time of mid-eclipse. Where they cross the central line (plotted in red) the local time, central line duration of totality and the Sun's altitude are labeled. This eliminates the need to look these details up on a table.

Armed with the "Road Atlas" and the latest weather forecasts, the road warrior is ready to chase totality no matter where it takes him/her along the 2500-mile-long path. This mobile strategy offers the highest probability of witnessing the spectacular 2017 total eclipse in clear skies.

The "Road Atlas" is the complementary publication of Eclipse Bulletin: Total Solar Eclipse of 2017 August 21.

Fred Espenak is a retired astrophysicist from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. His primary research involved infrared spectroscopy of planetary atmospheres. He also became NASA's expert on solar and lunar eclipse predictions and still maintains NASA's official eclipse website