Glenn Schneider, 1955–2025 – Sky & Telescope

GLENN SCHNEIDER, 1955–2025

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 instrument scientist for the Near Infrared Cameras 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 in July 2019 that intercepted the Moon’s shadow 1,100 kilometers north of Easter Island, stretching totality’s duration to more than 9 minutes; 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.