SUNSET: 
3Astronomy has lost one of its most passionate chasers of total solar eclipses with the passing of astronomer Glenn Schneider.
Joel Moskowitz
Astronomy lost one of its most passionate chasers of total solar eclipses with the passing of astronomer Glenn Schneider on February 5th. He succumbed to Lewy body dementia, a progressive brain disorder, at age 69.
Among those who enjoy eclipses, Dr. Schneider was a well-known and highly regarded expert. He was the first to coin the term umbraphile, literally meaning "shadow lover." More practically, it means someone willing to do just about anything to see a total solar eclipse.
“Those who have basked in the moon's shadow will understand without further explanation,” he noted on his homepage, adding, “Those who have not, may have difficulty in understanding that umbraphillia is not only an addiction, but an affliction, and a way of life. The real raison d'être for many of us.”
He witnessed his very first total solar eclipse in March 1970, and it changed his life — even though his professional research didn't actually involve total solar eclipses.
“It was total solar eclipses that really set the pathway for me,” he once said.
He came to the University of Arizona’s Steward Observatory in 1994 and later served as the project scientist for the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS), an instrument that was installed on the Hubble Space Telescope during its second servicing mission on shuttle mission STS-82 in February 1997.
Schneider used NICMOS and other instruments to study the environment around the stars that formed, or are forming, planets beyond our solar system. That work begins with getting clear images of the dust and debris around those stars. To do that, the instruments block much of the stars’ intense light – ironically, not unlike an eclipse.
His passion and his work were, to quote him “incredibly symbiotic,” even beyond just the technical similarities. The transformation in 1970 that led him on a life of adventure around the world also laid the foundation for his career as an astronomer.
Schneider retired in February 2022.
Glenn truly made his mark as an assiduous calculator and chaser of total solar eclipses. If, for example, you wanted to mount an airborne eclipse expedition, he was the person to go to, as he prepared numerous flight paths for eclipse expeditions over the past three decades, including flights over Antarctica in November 2003 and over the North Pole in August 2008, as well as flights involving a commercial airliner (Alaska Airlines) in March 2016 and August 2017.
In fact, by 2019 he had attained a world record, for the greatest number of total solar eclipses ever experienced: an incredible 35. Much was made of that record in the mainstream media, but Schneider dismissed the achievement as “totally irrelevant.”
“This is not a competitive sport,” he said at the time. “We don't do this for record keeping; it's just one of the incidentals that happens to come along with it. The real relevancy is what amazing phenomena total solar eclipses are.”
He was involved in some amazing extremes, including witnessing a total solar eclipse near Iceland in October 1986 that lasted literally a fraction of a second. In April 1976, Schneider and a friend drove six hours from his home in the Bronx to a beach on the Cape Cod National Seashore, which was on the western extremity of a solar eclipse whose ending would coincide with sunrise. Only four-tenths of a percent of the Sun’s diameter was to be covered, but they saw it!
He also implemented an airborne expedition on July 11, 2010 that intercepted the Moon’s shadow 2,500 kilometers east of Tahiti, French Polynesia, stretching totality’s duration 9 minutes 23 seconds; the longest total eclipse ever experienced by a commercial aircraft.
On a personal note, it is my good fortune to call Glenn one of my oldest and dearest friends for more than 50 years. He was one of the brightest and funniest people that I ever knew; his creativity extended to hilarious practical jokes. During our formative years, we went on many adventures to observe a variety of different astronomical events, such as a predawn occultation of Venus in July 1974 (from the top of the Empire State Building!), Comet West from the Catskill Mountains in March 1976, treks to New York’s Adirondack Mountains to observe the Perseid meteors, as well as numerous visits each summer to Stellafane in Vermont.
In 2023, I was honored to give Stellafane’s Keynote Address on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Springfield Telescope Makers. My talk was about my own pursuit of solar eclipses, and a good part of my talk involved Glenn. Sadly, he was unable to attend, but I finished my talk with the announcement that — with the assistance of Dan Green at the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams — we were able to get a minor planet named for Glenn: 12936 Glennschneider.
So, even though he has left us, Glenn’s name will live on in perpetuity in space.
About Joe Rao
Joe Rao is a eight-time Emmy-nominated meteorologist for Verizon FiOS1 News (serving New York's Lower Hudson Valley) and a lecturer at New York’s Hayden Planetarium.
Comments
Andrew James
February 13, 2025 at 4:45 pm
Moments in time are sometimes very important.
I only met Glenn once. This was at the Australian TSE on the 23rd October 1976. I went to a place atop Mount Delegate, which lies on the New South Wales and Victoria border. I didn't know him again until 18 February 2015 (almost exactly 10 years ago writing this), when I accidentally came in contact with him on a solar eclipse blog.
In private correspondence, he sent me a wonderful photograph of me and about a dozen people who had decided this was a good place to observe the TSE. I had no pictures on that day other than the eclipse, but lo and behold, this great photograph he sent me and showed me and him actually standing next to each other!
One of the things I had forgotten about was that Glenn carried around and black eclipse flag to every eclipse he ever observed. It looks like the Jolly Roger flag, except it had a black circle surrounded by the white corona in its centre.
After all these years, I knew very little about my companion observers on that mountain that afternoon, but we were all so lucky because we all saw the mid-eclipse lasting the whole 4 min 15 sec just before the cloud rolled in. Everyone else in the surrounding areas got 100% clouded out, who had concentrated many hundreds of the observers near the township of Bombala! (They still talk about the small cloudless hole they saw which was what we were looking through see this TSE.) We were so lucky!
I'm still astounded at the coincidence of this event and meeting Glenn, did not know it was him until 39 years later!
I would like to share with S&T readers of little bit of the correspondence shared between us.
After a brief discussion where I mention mount delegate, I received these surprising words: "Well... per chance are any of these fellows you?"
He so generously wrote:
"I'm the one sitting down in the white shirt at the base of the flag behind the plant that you can see from only shoulders up. (A lot younger then, as we all were!) The guy standing up next to me in the green jacket is Lenny Lataille from Massachusetts, and next to him holding up the flag is Craig Small from New York. At the time, TSE 1976 was my 5th TSE, it was Craig's 6th (not sure about Lenny). Craig and I are life-long TSE addicts, now 31 for me, 29 for Craig. I had actually also been to Australia for the one just prior, TSE 1974, which I saw from Cape Leeuwin at Cape D'Entrecasteaux, at lands end in the SW. At the extreme right of this photo, that's my collapsible 6-inch f/4 fold-up very light weight (unguided) Newtonian telescope (on a camera tripod). It collapsed down to fit into a very small carry case. We were limited in what we could carry even then on international flights. I would love to have then taken a telescope like the one in this picture (yours?) but its a bit much for hand-carry on an aircraft. I did get some good photos though, which I'll have to properly have digitized some day. Sorry for the (lack of) quality for this one. As said I only have a document scanner here and is not good for slides as in their mounts is a bit afocal. But, good enough I think to recognize faces. Are you in this one? I hope so, and cool to "reconnect" after almost four decades. Wow, look at those ominous clouds in the background (and us in sunlight soon after C3). I had almost forgotten just how bad those clouds were, and so glad we (and now knowing you) made it to the spot with that magic hole!
I wrote back saying : "Wow. Just Brilliant. Small world."
He replied: "When played through the filter of a TSE path of totality the "small" world becomes even much smaller. E.g., for a transit of Venus (as an example a rare event many would, and have, travelled for) visible almost anywhere on one hemisphere of the Earth the "chance" of confluence with another given shadow-chaser is small. Limited area totality paths focus the concentration, and increase the odds of "chance" confluences. Still, of all places across that part of Australia either of us could have ended up, the "odds" of us both picking the top of Mt. Deligate seem pretty remote. I think then a simple case of "great minds think alike" 😉 Cheers, -GS-"
I now hold this lovely photograph and his words even more, and the generosity of his comments about our paths crossing. I honestly cherish our encounter under a darken sun.
Vale Glenn!
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Michael-Brown
February 13, 2025 at 5:28 pm
Glenn was a life-long friend of mine, and our friendship centered around astronomy and, in particular, total eclipses. I consider him to have been an instrumental part of the greatest adventures of my life. As teenagers, we saw our first total eclipse (1970) in Greenville, NC and then worked together planning an astronomy club trip to Quebec for the 1972 event (unfortunately we had clouds). I would see two other total eclipses with Glenn, in Kenya (1980) and Oregon (2017) (and three others without Glenn). We also traveled together to the Florida Keys to view Comet Halley. His excitement was unbounded and contagious. I'll miss him.
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Roy-Plotnick
February 13, 2025 at 7:16 pm
Glenn and I attended the Bronx High School of Science together. In March 1970 we both went with the Amateur Observers Society to observe the March 1970 total eclipse in North Carolina. Also my first total solar eclipse (of 3). In 2019 he was kind enough to send me a picture of a dorky looking 15 year old getting ready for the eclipse. I mourn his passing.
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