Total Eclipse Guide - Indiana
Official Commemorative 2024 Keepsake Guidebook
Aaron Linsdau
Sastrugi Press
Pages 66
Published 2019
$10

As I begin preparing for the 2024 Total Solar Eclipse, I am always on the lookout for eclipse related items. Astronomy Magazine sent me a notice of new items in their online Eclipse Store. Two items caught my attention: the Total Eclipse Guide - Indiana and this Total Solar Eclipse pin:

Along with the pin, I purchased the Total Eclipse Guide - Indiana since I hope to be in my Indiana hometown on the Path of Totality for the 8 April 2024 Total Solar Eclipse. There are Guides for each state along the Path of Totality available in the Astronomy Magazine Eclipse Store.

This is the guide's contents:

Introduction
All About Indiana
    Overview of Indiana
    Weather
    Finding the Right Location
    Road Closures and Traffic
    Wilderness and Forest Park Safety
    Eclipse Day Safety
All About Eclipses
    Total vs Partial Eclipse
    Early Myth & Astronomy
    Contemporary American Solar Phenomena
    Future American Eclipses
Viewing and Photographing the Eclipse
    Planning Ahead
    Understanding Sun Position
    Eclipse Data for Selected Locations
Eclipse Photography
    Eclipse Photography Gear
    Camera Phones
Viewing Locations Around Indiana
Remember the Indiana Total Eclipse

Aaron Linsdau is an established book author. He is also a motivational speaker and explorer and some of that perspective on life comes through in this guidebook. As someone who was born and raised in southern Indiana, I can say that the Overview of Indiana section of the guide is accurate. I did note one discrepancy however; the guidebook says that the book's website has some digital forest maps available, but I found none there. Also, there is a comment to use the Wunderground smartphone app to check local conditions using webcams. But after this guide was published in 2019, Weather Underground stopped providing support for webcams.

The section "All About Eclipses" describes how eclipses occur. But one notable omission is the most commonly asked question about Total Solar Eclipses: why don't they occur every month at the time of the New Moon? (The answer is that the Moon's orbit is tilted about 5° from the plane of the Earth's orbit around the Sun.) There is also a short history of eclipses in various cultures over thousands of years.

The next section, "Viewing and Photographing the Eclipse", begins with safe viewing tips and the appropriate warnings about unsafe practices. It then goes into a good discussion of azimuth and elevation. But surprisingly, although this section notes the time of Totality at a few locations in the state, it does not provide the Sun's azimuth and elevation for those locations. The Sun's position in the sky during the eclipse is discussed in the last section, "Viewing Locations Around Indiana".

In the "Eclipse Photography" section, the author provides guidance on photography equipment and many excellent tips and reminders.

The section "Viewing Locations Around Indiana" provides information for 17 cities and towns and 4 unique locations in Indiana. The details are location overview, getting there (no road maps are included however), totality duration, notes (location website), and the Sun's position in the sky during the eclipse from that location. I was pleasantly surprised to see both my college alma mater city and my hometown discussed here. (For years I have been struggling with where I would view the 2024 eclipse. The decision was only recently decided in favor of my hometown when I was invited to be a guest speaker at their Total Eclipse Festival!)

The final section, "Remember the Indiana Total Eclipse", is where you can document who you were with at the eclipse, what you saw and felt, what other people thought, and where you stayed.

Summary

Although the Total Eclipse Guide - Indiana is billed as a "Commemorative Official 2024 Keepsake Guidebook", there is no indication of what makes it "official". That said, the guidebook is an excellent collection of tips, reminders, and resources available for eclipse viewing in Indiana. I suspect the same is true for the other state guidebooks. The guidebook combines a lot of useful information for both the experienced solar eclipse chaser and the first-time eclipse viewer in one resource tailored for a specific state. I will be taking the guidebook with me when I go to Indiana for the 2024 Total Solar Eclipse.

More information about the "2024 North America Total Eclipse Guides", including bulk purchases, is available at https://www.sastrugipress.com/eclipse.

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