Maps of Solar Eclipses from 1970 to 1974

In 1973, a superlative event in the history of eclipse observation took place when the Concorde super-sonic aircraft intercepted a total solar eclipse over Africa for an amazing . An abstract of the article in Nature, 09 November 1973, “Eclipse Flight of Concorde 001” by J. Beckman et. al. states:

“On June 30, 1973, Concorde 001 intercepted the path of a solar eclipse over North Africa, Flying at Mach 2.05 the aircraft provided seven observers from France, Britain and the United States with 74 min of totality bounded by extended second (7 min) and third (12 min) contacts. The former permitted searches for time variations of much longer period than previously possible and the latter provided an opportunity for chromospheric observations of improved height resolution. The altitude, which varied between 16,200 and 17,700 m, freed the observations from the usual weather problems and greatly reduced atmospheric absorption and sky noise in regions of the infrared.”

Because of the retirement of the Concorde fleet after a tragic crash in 2000, this eclipse duration record is not likely to be surpassed for many years. The story of this eclipse flight is in Los Alamos Science and can be found at http://library.lanl.gov/cgi-bin/getfile?02-02.pdf