AUSTIN, Texas — There are just a few moments of awe and beauty as the moon passes between the sun and the Earth during an eclipse.
The moon casts a shadow on the Earth as the sky grows dark as night for a few tantalizing minutes – an experience many in Texas will experience in less than a month.
Vivid pictures of eclipses are commonplace these days, but long ago, the art of photography hadn’t yet been fully developed.
But in 1900 – 124 years ago - the first-ever movie film of a total solar eclipse was made somewhere over North Carolina. The film was amazingly clear and full of detail despite the limitations of lenses and film stock at the time.
Yet this film became one of history’s great mysteries.
We owe the historic moving images to a British magician named Nevil Maskelyne, Jr. When he wasn’t performing magic tricks, Maskelyne made short movies.
But just as magicians make things vanish, this film disappeared, too. It was lost for more than a century until a chance discovery in 2016 in the vaults of the British Film Institute.
Today, film historians marvel at how Maskelyne kept changing the exposure as the sky grew darker. He knew his craft.
From the first movie ever made of an eclipse to the millions of images of modern-day eclipses today, great views of this solar magic are now easy to find online.
But perhaps we should marvel, for a moment, at this first movie of an eclipse, of images lost and found.
And while we’re at it, let’s marvel at the images of people like us, including folks here in the Texas who will get to experience the sudden darkness during the day of a full solar eclipse on April 8.
A day, no doubt, that will be like Maskelyne’s illusive movie: rare and unforgettable.