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• Observing solar eclipses safely
• Why watch the partial eclipse? Only those along a narrow track on Earth's surface will see the annular or ring of fire eclipse. A much broader swath of Earth will witness a partial eclipse of the sun. During the partial phases of the May 9-10 eclipse of the sun, the moon takes a bite out of the solar disk. How big a bite depends on how close you are to the path of annularity, shown on the map below. You of course need special filters to protect your eyes while watching a partial solar eclipse, or you can use a pinhole camera technique to project the sun's image. Why watch? Leslie C. Peltier, the author of the classic Starlit Nights, says it best:
• I was sitting spellbound as the moon, right on time, took its first little nibble from the red-hot cookie of the sun.
• The annular eclipse path is over 13,000 kilometers long but its varying width only extends from 171 to 225 kilometers wide. Annularity is fairly short-lived at any one spot, lasting about 4 minutes near the beginning and end of the eclipse path, and about 6 minutes at greatest eclipse midway between.
• Path of May 9-10 solar eclipse The path of the annular eclipse begins at sunrise in Western Australia (22:35 Universal Time on May 9) and ends at sunset some 3 hours and 40 minutes later over the Pacific Ocean (2:15 UT on May 10). The greatest eclipse happens midway between, or at noon (00:25 UT on May 10) - just to the west of the International Date Line. If you have difficulty translating Universal Time to local time, we give the local times for the eclipse for some localities below.
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