umbraphile n. an avid observer of, or a person with a great interest in, eclipses. Etymological Note: From Latin umbra ‘shade’ + Greek philos ‘loving.’ (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful first sentences that are similarly...
Enthusiastic book recommendations! Martha’s savoring the biography of Alexander von Humboldt, the 19th-century explorer, polymath, and naturalist who revolutionized our understanding of nature and predicted the effects of human activity on...
Earliest known use (by me, but certainly may
be predated), soon after the 1976 total solar eclipse. Also see:
http://nicmosis.as.arizona.edu:8000/UMBRAPHILLIA.html
Not only solar eclipses but occultations in general!
When the moon or an asteroid passes in front of a distant star, the moon or asteroid casts a shadow into space and if the earth intercepts the shadow an umbra is created upon the ground. As the shadow sweeps by the observer the star briefly disappears. A Solar Eclipse is realy a Lunar Occultation, it’s just that the star is up close and personal!