Ring of Fire Revisited
Credit & Copyright:
Dennis Mammana
(Skyscapes)
Early on Saturday,
May 31 (UT) the new Moon will
once again slide across the Sun's fiery disk, and
once again an
annular solar eclipse will be the
result -- since the Moon's apparent
diameter
will be a little too small to completely
cover the Sun.
But this time
celestial geometry
has conspired to produce a broad
D-shaped region
for viewing the
annular phase that extends into the far northern hemisphere,
rather than creating a thin track racing across land and sea.
The characteristic ring of fire will be visible from
northern Scotland, Iceland, and parts of Greenland.
Otherwise a partial eclipse will be more widely visible
as across Europe, along with parts of Asia and North America,
the Moon will appear to take a "bite" out of the Sun.
While the northerly observers might certainly expect a
dramatic
view, it will probably not look quite
like this one, recorded with a foreground
of palm trees during a 1992 annular eclipse.
Want to watch Saturday's eclipse on the web?
Check out the planned
webcasts
from Astronet.