I’ve been a “skywatcher” my entire life. Living in the Pacific Northwest, it hasn’t been easy. But that doesn’t mean I don’t drive to the beach hoping to get a break in the clouds on the nights when there’s supposed to be a special event in the dark firmament.
With the advent of the Internet, I’ve been able to view all sorts of eclipses and meteor showers and even the Aurora Borealis, despite the cloud cover. It’s certainly a poor substitute, but it’s better than nothing.
At sunrise tomorrow morning, if you were in the right place on earth, you could observe an annular eclipse. For the uninitiated, an annular solar eclipse can be observed when the Moon moves centrally in front of the Sun, but it is so far away from Earth that it appears smaller in the sky and cannot cover the Sun completely. The Sun’s outer edges are then still visible and form a “ring of fire” around the Moon.
So if you currently happen to be in Australia or the South Pacific, you’ve got good seats. Or you could see a .5 penumbra (shadow) in Hawaii, if you’re lucky enough to be there at the moment, or want to catch a quick plane.
Hawaii sure sounds good to me!
