Arizona man's eclipse images to be used on Forever stamp

Video and images of this 2014 total lunar eclipse are mesmerizing. It's a space in time captured by retired NASA astrophysicist and Southern Arizona resident, Fred Espenak, otherwise known as Mr. Eclipse.

"I started photography long before I joined NASA," he said. "I have been a life-long photographer since the age of 11 or 12, doing astro photography, hooking up cameras to telescopes and shooting the night sky and I've also been chasing eclipses around the world for 47 years. I've been to 27 total eclipses."

Two of his images will soon be seen worldwide as the U.S. Post Office will release a first-of-its-kind Forever stamp that changes when you touch it.

"This new thermal stage technology that they're going to use for the first time, where if you put your finger on the eclipse stamp, the warmth of your finger will warm up the stamp and it will reveal a picture of the full moon in place of the eclipsed sun," Espenak said.

The back of the stamp will feature a map of the route of the next eclipse.

"That's actually the purpose for the stamp that the post office is issuing," Espenak said. "It's a commemorative for the 2017 eclipse path, which crosses the United States from Oregon diagonally across the country to South Carolina and it includes a dozen states in the path. Sadly, Arizona is not one of those states."

Mr. Eclipse will travel to Wyoming on August 21, which is one of the states in the path of the total eclipse. He hopes to capture new images that will forever document what he calls, "the most remarkable natural phenomenon ever."