A celestial treat for early risers

HEAVENLY SHOW. A partial solar eclipse will be visible early Monday in Metro Manila, as depicted in a series of illustrations by the UP Los Baños Astronomical Society. Source: www.uplbastrosoc.org

A rare phenomenon called annular solar eclipse will make the sun appear as if it were a ring of fire with a black center. Actually, the moon will be crossing between the Earth and the sun, obscuring the latter except for its edges.

The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) Observatory in Quezon City said the eclipse would occur at 5:27 a.m. However, observers in the country would only witness a partial eclipse because of the location of the Philippines, said Renato de Leon, an observatory employee.

Only 61 percent of the sun is expected to be blocked by the moon at 5:58 a.m., De Leon said.

The phenomenon, he said, will end at 7:06 a.m. in Manila and 7:11 a.m. in Mindanao.

De Leon said anyone in the country could witness the event as long as the skies were clear.

The annular solar eclipse will be visible from a track that will go across China, most of Russia, Southeast Asia, Hawaii, Arctic regions and most of North America, the Pagasa said on its website.

An annular solar, or ring eclipse, is not as dramatic as a total eclipse, when the disk of the sun is entirely blocked by the moon.

The moon crosses between the Earth and sun as in a total solar eclipse.  In an annular eclipse, however, the moon is too far from the Earth and appears too small in the sky to blot out the sun completely.

“A bright ring around the sun at mideclipse is still pretty cool,” Geoff Chester of the US Naval Observatory said in an e-mail.

The solar spectacle will be first seen in eastern Asia at dawn. Millions of early risers in southern China, northern Taiwan and southeast Japan will catch the ring eclipse. Then, it will creep across the Pacific with the western United States viewing the tail end.

In Japan, cable cars are running early to give tourists an unobstructed view from the mountains. Ferries are also making special trips so that others may enjoy the scene offshore.

The Taipei Astronomical Museum will open its doors at dawn while Hong Kong’s Space Museum will set up solar-filtered telescopes outside its building on the Kowloon waterfront.

In some parts of the Philippines, people will not be able to see the annular solar eclipse due to cloudy skies, Pagasa said.

It said northern and central Luzon would be overcast today. Eastern Mindanao would also see cloudy skies with isolated rain showers and thunderstorms in the afternoons.

Wear protective filters

De Leon advised observers to wear protective filters for the eyes when watching the sun. “It would be too bright,” he said.

He recommended that people use a welder’s mask or an exposed X-ray film. He also advised against taking pictures of the eclipse without filtered camera lens.

If one bought special eyewear, he or she can recycle it.

Two weeks later, Venus will crawl across the face of the sun—a rare occurrence known as the “transit of Venus” that will also require viewers to take precaution. With a report from AP