About the Author - Fred Espenak

eclipse book

AstroPixels Publications:

Thousand Year Canon of Solar Eclipses 1501 to 2500

Thousand Year Canon of Lunar Eclipses 1501 to 2500

Eclipse Bulletin: Total Solar Eclipse of 2017 August 21

Road Atlas for the Total Solar Eclipse of 2017



About the Author

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 (eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov).

Known by his nickname "Mr. Eclipse," he is co-author along with Mark Littmann of the popular book Totality - Eclipses of the Sun. In 2006, Espenak published the comprehensive Five Millennium Canon of Solar Eclipses: -1999 to +3000 with 5000 years of solar eclipse diagrams and maps. Three years later (2009), he published the complementary volume Five Millennium Canon of Lunar Eclipses: -1999 to +3000 with 5000 years of lunar eclipse diagrams and maps. He has also published thirteen NASA eclipse bulletins, each one focusing on a specific eclipse.

Espenak's www.MrEclipse.com website focuses on eclipse photography while the new www.EclipseWise.com website is devoted to the dissemination of his latest eclipse predictions. An avid eclipse chaser, he has participated in dozens of eclipse expeditions around the world including remote and unusual locations such as the Sahara, the Bolivian altiplano, Mongolia, Lake Turkana and Antarctica. Espenak's enthusiasm for eclipses spills over into public speaking, and he is frequently gives talks about his favorite subject.

In 2003, the International Astronomical Union honored him by naming asteroid 14120 "Espenak". Now living in rural Arizona, he spends most clear nights losing sleep and photographing the stars from Bifrost Observatory (www.AstroPixels.com).

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