ALBUQUERQUE: Sky­g­azers across the Americas turned their faces upwards on Satu­rday for a rare celestial event: an annular solar eclipse.

A crowd wearing protective eyewear gathered in Albuquerque, New Mexico, one of many places across the western US where the Moon was seen passing between the Sun and Earth. Since it is so distant, it will not cover the Sun completely, creating a “ring of fire” effect.

In the course of just a few hours, the most striking “path of the annularity” crossed a handful of major cities, including Albuquerque as well as Eugene, Oregon and San Antonio, Texas, with partial eclipse phases lasting an hour or two before and after.

Earlier, Nasa had said the eclipse would be visible in these cities between 9:15am and 11:50am in local time zones.

At any location, it was visible for between 30 seconds and five minutes.

People were urged to take safety precautions and use solar viewing glasses, and never regular sunglasses, to preserve their vision.

It will also cross Mexico and Central America, then into South America through Colombia and northern Brazil, before ending at sunset in the Atlantic Ocean.

The event also serves as a dress rehearsal before a total eclipse set for April 2024.

Both eclipses are going to be “absolutely breathtaking for science,” said Madhulika Guhathakurta, a heliophysics programme scientist.

Published in Dawn, October 15th, 2023