(http://m.static.newsvine.com/servista/imagesizer?file=john-brecherD47B968A-D525-6FCB-FB62-402B25827963.jpg&width=900)John Brecher / NBC NewsAt right, Namiko Aoki, 84, from Tokyo, Japan, and companions Keiko Nakamura and Kisako Takahara. watch the moon eclipse the sun from Four Mile Beach in Port Douglas, Australia on Wednesday Nov. 14, 2012. By John Brecher, NBC News
The first one got me hooked. June 21, 2001, was a bright sunny day in Lusaka, Zambia, and the only hint of the spectacle to come was a crowd of thousands I'd joined on a soccer field. It began slowly - imperceptibly save for shouts of “First contact!” from those watching the sun with filtered telescopes. It took about an hour for the moon to obscure half the sun’s disk, reducing ambient light by half (that’s one stop, if you play with cameras). If you didn’t know what was happening, you probably wouldn’t notice.(http://m.static.newsvine.com/servista/imagesizer?file=john-brecherBC5BD2FD-5025-B619-BE42-0FB214EBE029.jpg&width=900)John BrecherSchool kids watch the moon's disk begin to cover the sun between first and second contact during a total solar eclipse on June 21, 2001 in Lusaka, Zambia. The next 20 minutes, though, changed my worldview. The sun faded faster and faster, dropping the ambient light another 12 stops, half of them in the last handful of minutes - a curtain fall from midday to midnight.
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