When people say the word "eclipse", the first thing that springs to mind is normally complete darkness, and a hole in the sky with a wierd white thing surrounding it. This is because the moon has moved in front of the sun and in that fraction of the Earth is in shadow. Earth is the only planet in its solar system that experiences the total eclispe. All other planets either experience an eclipse where the moon is so close to the planet it appears to be much larger than the sun, or the moon is so far away the eclipse is so partial it is unnoticable.

But even on Earth, just before a total solar eclipse occurs, you surely would have thought that it would be very dark if the sun was 98% covered. This is not the case. It happens to be that even though it is slightly dark, it is still considerably light. It is not until the magic moment of totality is there complete blackness.

This is very unfair though, because the poor lunar eclipse tends to be forgotten. This occurs when the moon passes through the Earth's shadow, which happens on average 2 to 5 times a year and only if the moon is at a full phase according the Earth's point of view. You would probably expect the moon to disappear from view altogether during totality. But this is not the case. The moon goes a red-brown colour, but about half way to totality and the last half, it does appear to have a vreature eating away at it. That is a lunar (and some people say loony eclipse.

And let us not forget the people who believe that eclipses are a bad omen, and you can't blame them, in previous years people would panic, as they didn't know why it was suddenly getting dark and there was a hole in the sky. Unless you were a Tahitan and believed that the sun and moon were lovers, and during the eclipse they were making love.

And what about those poor eclipse watchers/fanatics, who risk burning the back of their eye, they probably in their excitement forgot how to view an eclipse properly. The problem is that between 1996 and 2020, most eclipses are in the middle of nowhere, a.k.a. the Pacific Ocean and are sligtly hard to view properly. If not then looking at proffesional photos are always the next best option, and if that's not satisfying enough, then there's always eclipse maps so they know where they are.

Now that's comfort for some people.