ALBUQUERQUE (United States): Skygazers across the Americas turned their faces upwards Saturday for a rare celestial event: an annular solar eclipse.
A crowd of people wearing protective eyewear gathered in Albuquerque, New Mexico, one of many across the western United States watching as the Moon passed between the Sun and Earth at its furthest point from our planet.
Since it is so distant, it did not cover the Sun completely, creating a “ring of fire” effect that brought cheers from the crowd in Albuquerque.
“It’s majestic. We’re in awe,” said one viewer, Shannon Cozad.
In the course of just a few hours the most striking “path of the annularity” was crossing a handful of major cities, including Eugene, Oregon and San Antonio, Texas, with partial eclipse phases lasting an hour or two before and after.
“It’s kind of like a black hole,” said Mubaraq Sokunbi, an excited eight-year-old who was at a hot air balloon festival in Albuquerque with his family. “The moon covers the sun and then there’s a ring around it.”
At any given location, the eclipse was visible from between 30 seconds and five minutes — but people were urged to take safety precautions and use solar viewing glasses, and never regular sunglasses, to preserve their vision.
The eclipse crossed into Mexico and Central America, then into South America through Colombia and northern Brazil before ending at sunset in the Atlantic Ocean.
At the Bogota Planetarium, a crowd gathered around noon, holding their breath for the clouds to clear. When they did — and in time to see the eclipse — some observers shed tears, overwhelmed by emotion.
“It was at first distressing not to be able to see it, then very moving” when it appeared, Xiomara Cifuentes, a 41-year-old civil servant who came with her husband and their three children, told AFP.
“It will be a beautiful memory,” she added.
It was “a pretty beautiful moment… an indescribable thing, without words,” said Jhoan Vinazco, a 25-year-old university student who had never seen an eclipse before. In the town of Penonome, Panama, about 160 kilometres (100 miles) from Panama City, Carlos Ramirez watched the eclipse dressed as an astronaut — something he dreamed of becoming as a child.
“I found the event here in Panama spectacular,” the 55-year-old tour guide said. – AFP
