When her jittery subject abruptly retreated into the weird twilight, photojournalist Amanda Cowan hustled to adapt, rescuing a version of the perfect image she’d pictured.
Cowan literally dove headfirst into a patch of gravel, she said, and tilted her lens upward so it captured both the silhouette of astronomer Shadia Habbal and the total solar eclipse in the sky.
“We only had about two minutes,” said Cowan, who knew her crucial photo must bring together cosmic occurrence and earthbound scientist. “I only looked at the totality for two or three seconds, because I needed to get the shot.”
She got what she was after, as you can see in the book “Eclipse Chaser: Science in the Moon’s Shadow.” That’s a new volume in a young adult book series called “Scientists in the Field.”
“The premise is to introduce kids to a field of science by highlighting scientists who have adventurous jobs, who go out and do exciting things in the field,” said the author, Ilima Loomis, a Hawaii-based freelance writer.
Loomis and Cowan spent 10 years working together at The Maui News before each moved on to other things. Cowan became The Columbian’s photo editor in early 2017. That’s also when she accepted Loomis’ invitation to work on a unique side project for a few days in August: documenting a team of scientists gathered in rural Oregon to study the rare astronomical spectacle of a total solar eclipse.
The project turned out to be the ultimate exercise in breaking-news photography, both for Cowan and for the astronomy team. First came days of anxious suspense as the scientists arrived and readied telescopes and scientific equipment to catch what would be a momentary event. Then came the almost unbearable, final wait to see whether the sky felt like cooperating.
Shifting weather and random clouds have been known to scuttle even the best-laid plans of the most professional sky watchers, but recent Oregon summers have unleashed even more potential obstacles.
“For more than a week, wildfires have been raging in the western part of Oregon, burning thousands of acres of forest,” Loomis writes. “The fires are hundreds of miles away, but they’re big enough to stain the sky an ugly reddish brown. For now, it looks like the smoke is staying in the western part of the sky, but what if the wind blows it in their direction?
“The sky must be completely clear. If there are any particles of carbon or water vapor in the atmosphere, it could change how observations turn out,” Loomis writes.
Syria, Hawaii, Oregon
“I never studied physics,” Loomis admitted, but she did put her taste for wonky details to work for The Maui News covering such matters as budgets and zoning.
“I was always good at talking to experts and then translating for regular people,” she said. “Science is sexier but a lot of the same challenges are there.”
And, Loomis added, there’s no better place to focus on space science than her home state of Hawaii with its many mountaintop space telescopes and the astronomers who love them.
One of those astronomers is Shadia Habbal, a Syrian scientist now based at the University of Hawaii.
“When I heard about Shadia and how she was chasing eclipses all around the world, I knew she’d be a great subject,” Loomis said.
Habbal has experienced both eclipse-viewing triumphs and tragedies in exotic sites like the island of Svalbard, in the Arctic Circle, where she made spectacular observations in 2015, and Plun Island, Indonesia, where clouds rendered her 2016 visit “almost a complete waste,” Loomis writes in “Eclipse Chaser.”
Her next attempt would be the so-called Great American Eclipse of August 2017. Habbal invited Loomis to watch her team of scientists study the eclipse from Mitchell, Ore. Loomis invited Cowan to take photos.
Mitchell is a town of about 125 residents that got swamped by hundreds more visiting eclipse watchers, Loomis said. Habbal’s team rented a ranch outside of town. Loomis and Cowan camped in a tent and spent several days doing what journalists do: absorbing the scene while staying out of the way.
“I don’t know what I was expecting, but there was a lot of long, tedious preparation. Do I write that they’re fiddling with their instruments for days, running tests on the computer? I was really wondering how to make a story out of this,” Loomis said.
“They’re all busy working and they’re very stressed,” Cowan said. “There’s a real threat that they may not see anything at all. … Nobody knew what was going to happen.”
Two minutes, three seconds
Eclipses aren’t rare, but the Great American Eclipse of 2017 was remarkable for several reasons.
A total solar eclipse demonstrates the cosmic coincidence of the moon appearing precisely the same size as the sun and covering it completely. That’s called “totality,” and it’s the only time people can look at the sun without protective eyewear. On display in that brief moment is a blacked-out sun surrounded by its flaming atmosphere, the corona. As anyone who’s seen totality will attest, it’s an astonishing and otherworldly experience.
Many Americans shared the experience. The Great American Eclipse earned that nickname because it was first total solar eclipse in 99 years to cut all the way across the continent, coast to coast. Twelve million people lived inside the narrow path of totality, and half of the country’s entire population was within a day’s drive, according to Loomis’ book.
To surmount the risk of bad weather or other problems at any one site, Habbal actually deployed five different eclipse-viewing teams in five different spots along the path of totality — in Idaho, Wyoming and Nebraska as well as Oregon. All five teams were led by women, Loomis said.
Habbal “doesn’t like to make a big deal out of this, but it’s really exceptional that she’s a woman leading her field,” Loomis said. “She is a leader in terms of paving the way for female scientists.”
Habbal emphasizes in the book that teamwork is essential when your opportunity is precisely two minutes and three seconds long.
“There is a critical time issue,” she says. “It requires discipline on the part of everyone. If someone decides they want to do something their own way, it doesn’t work. We all have to be ready and work together at the same time.”
But when the big moment finally arrived, Habbal was so stressed out she retreated from her instruments and her team — and from photographer Cowan, who went diving after her.
“She was so nervous, she just wanted to be alone,” Cowan said. “I totally understood that, but I needed to get that shot.”
She got it. She was vaguely aware of atmospheric special effects as the whole world seemed to go dark and cool, she said. She was more aware of the science team relaxing and celebrating at last.
“Fantastic! Gorgeous corona! You could see the streamers!” Habbal declared as the moon slid past the sun.
Time crunch over, Cowan enjoyed the luxury of taking weeks to edit her photos. Nothing could be more different than racing ahead of deadline for the next day’s newspaper, she said.
“Ilima was able to write to the photographs so everything matches up perfectly,” she said. “When the book arrived it was so exciting. I never expected to see my name on the cover of a book.”
