Journal of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers (1930-1949)

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236 F. P. BRACKETT [j. s. M. p. E. preparations, the voyage to the station, and the activities of the observers during the eclipse, as well as views of the eclipse itself. An agreement was made with a motion picture company to "shoot" the pictures. When the time came, however, they decided "to go it alone," with the result that neither they nor we got the motion picture, though other parts of our work were successfully done. During the past two or three years a number of good cinema-eclipse pictures have been made, one of them, by the way, on a winter morning in New York. In every instance this has been accomplished by the earnest cooperation of producers and astronomers. I believe that we have only started on the road to success in this field. A total solar eclipse occurs when the moon intervenes between the earth and the sun, and its shadow falls upon the earth. From any point in the shadowed area of the earth, one sees the sun covered by the black disk of the moon, its light being blotted out. But if one were looking down upon the earth from the moon, he would see a dark oval-shaped shadow moving rapidly across the earth's surface. If the shadow-spot were small enough he might even see it all from the summit of a high mountain or from an aeroplane. Accordingly, Dr. Whitney and I organized another expedition from Pomona College, at the time of the total solar eclipse in April, 1930, to obtain motion pictures of this shadow of the moon upon the earth from an aeroplane, and to locate the shadow and time its motion with the greatest possible accuracy. The result of this undertaking, if successful, would be that we should be able, by locating and timing the shadow, to determine with new accuracy the moon's distance from the earth, and so the relative positions of earth, moon, and sun; and hence, among other things of much importance, to permit more accurate computation and prediction of eclipses. Stated thus briefly, the problem looks simple enough, and is easily understood; but it proved to be a quite an undertaking, involving hundreds of people and elaborate equipment. The eclipse of April 28, 1930, was very unusual, and because of this unusual character, it was ideal for our purpose. The eclipse was very short, totality lasting only lx/2 seconds (the average duration of a total solar eclipse is two or three minutes), which was quite unfavorable for most observations. Its brevity was due to the fact that the shadow of the moon, cast by the sun, barely reached the surface of the earth, passing over a strip of a few hundred miles, and the shadow spot