1963 Total Solar Eclipse -- New York

From New York city the eclipse magnitude reached 0.89. These B&W images were obviously taken from the Empire State Building. It was a very warm and rather humid day and as can be seen on the film, the Sun played hide and seek with both the Moon and the clouds. I remember the late Dr. Fred Hess telling me that NBC Radio sent their long-time newscaster, Ben Grauer to the Hayden Planetarium as part of the eclipse coverage that was presented on their weekend show "Monitor." "It was amazing," said Fred. "The eclipsed Sun seemed to be behind the clouds most of the time, but every time the network threw it to Ben and I, the Sun broke through and we were able to provide an adequate description of what was visible for a national radio audience!"

I just realized that at 0:53 of this film, that the gentleman using the Newtonian
reflecting telescope is "probably" the late Abe Oshinsky from the Observing Group
("O.G.") of the Amateur Astronomers' Association.

In fact, I recognized the telescope first . . . then recognized Abe. He was much younger here than when I knew him in the 1970's/early '80's. John Pazmino, John Bortle or Sam Storch could probably verify this. In fact . . . I believe that Sam ended up with Abe's telescope -- the very same one pictured on this film -- after he passed away about 30-years ago. -Joe Rao

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For July 20, 1963, I was between college and Harvard graduate school. My soon-to-be grad-school colleagues Jim Pollack and Joe Kornblum joined me in a drive up to Quebec to see the eclipse. We wound up in Gentilly, about halfway between Montreal and Quebec City, and I recall seeing totality from the side of a river as we maneuvered among clouds in the sky.
At http://web.williams.edu/astronomy/eclipse/eclipse1963/ I have posted a USNO map, a partial-eclipse projected image I took, and a picture of the three of us along with an Air Force camera belonging to the Harvard College Observatory that Menzel lent us.
-Jay Pasachoff, December 29, 2011.

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