True - and I liked that book, and the movie, very much - in fact, I think King may have been referencing the very same 1972 eclipse.

My strongest memory of the eclipse is of a certain egotistical minor American conceptual artist, who reportedly, without so much as a by-your-leave, trotted into a local farmer's cow field with telescopes and cameras, and was booted out with prejudice by the indignant farmer.