Observations of the December 14, 2020, Total Solar Eclipse

With special arrangements from the Ministry of Science of Chile, arranged through the U.S. Embassy in Santiago, we were able to have a group of about a dozen northern-hemisphere astronomers at our site in Pucón, Chile, near the Villarrica volcano’s mid-level ski area, for the total solar eclipse of December 14, 2020. Though the authors could not travel there personally, we had a group of a dozen people there, though that site turned out to be cloudy, and in spite of an attempt to reach clear areas in Argentina, our group was unable to cross the border. We collected observations from a few sites from which the eclipse was visible, as well as space imaging. We worked to analyze the white-light imaging, making composite images that (a) were released to compare with predictions of the coronal streamers made by Predictive Science Inc based on SDO observations of the magnetic field over the preceding weeks; and (b) comparing the position of the eclipse comet. Information is available at my eclipse website at http://totalsolareclipse.org and at the website of the International Astronomical Union’s Working Group on Solar Eclipses at http://eclipses.info. JMP’s eclipse research receives major support from grant AGS-1903500 from the Solar Terrestrial Program, Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences Division, U.S. National Science Foundation to Williams College.