h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

We have an anular eclipse due this morning.

it is visible over the uk, europe and africa.

uk times are:

start: 8:50am bst
maximum: 10:00am bst
end: 11:20am bst

times vary +-5 minutes by location and are very different in other countries.

Guess what?

This is the first morning in about a week that I haven't woken up to glorious sunshine.

Cloudy here in the Peak District as well We wouldn't see the full annular effect from the UK in any case, we're not sufficiently close to the central path. But we would see a good partial eclipse with a big bite taken out of the sun - ONLY with proper viewing precautions taken of course. Phil spent ages last night making special filters with eclipse protection film from the local telescope shop. Guess they'll come in handy anyway for future solar observing.

Yep. North Wales lived up to its reputation. Cloudy

turvy

Seems we were all disappointed, though some reported seeing it in my journal.

Best place was Spain, apparently.

The total solar eclipse in 2006 will be on March 29th and you'll need to be watching from Brazil, through the Atlantic Ocean, Gold Coast of Africa, Saharan Desert, Mediterranean Sea, Turkey, the Black Sea, Georgia, Russian Federation, northern shores of Caspian Sea, Kazakhstan; and ending in Mongolia.
http://www.eclipse2006.boun.edu.tr/eclipse_2006eng.html

So, anyone up for a trip to Outer Mongolia?

Lincolnshire was all clouded out too.

A friend of mine was abroad, and got some shots with a cheap digital camera. see http://www.star.le.ac.uk/~lgt1/eclipse.html