About the Author - Fred Espenak
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 created 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 - The Great American Eclipses 2017 and 2024. 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.
In 2014, Espenak published the comprehensive Thousand Year Canon of Solar Eclipses 1501 to 2500 and the complementary volume Thousand Year Canon of Lunar Eclipses 1501 to 2500. His most recent publications 21st Century Canon of Solar Eclipses and 21st Century Canon of Lunar Eclipses are essential guides to all eclipses of the Sun and the Moon during this Century.
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". To commemorate the 2017 total eclipse through the USA, the U. S. Postal Service featured one of his eclipse photos on a unique heat-sensitive postage stamp. Now living in rural Arizona, he spends most clear nights losing sleep and photographing the stars from Bifrost Observatory (www.AstroPixels.com).
AstroPixels Publications by Fred Espenak
- Eclipse Almanac (Five Volumes)
- Guide for the Total Solar Eclipse of 2026
- Fifty Year Almanac of Astronomical Events - 2021 To 2070
- Atlas of Central Solar Eclipses in the USA
- 21st Century Canon of Solar Eclipses
- 21st Century Canon of Lunar Eclipses
- Thousand Year Canon of Solar Eclipses 1501 to 2500
- Thousand Year Canon of Lunar Eclipses 1501 to 2500
- Five Millennium Canon of Solar Eclipses -1999 to 3000
- Five Millennium Catalog of Solar Eclipses -1999 to 3000
- Five Millennium Canon of Lunar Eclipses -1999 to 3000
- Five Millennium Catalog of Lunar Eclipses -1999 to 3000
- Eclipse Bulletin: Total Solar Eclipse of 2017 August 21
- Road Atlas for the Total Solar Eclipse of 2017
- Road Atlas for the Annular Solar Eclipse of 2023
- Road Atlas for the Total Solar Eclipse of 2024
- Eclipse Bulletin: Total Solar Eclipse of 2024 April 08
