How to watch today’s solar eclipse
Nov 13, 2012, 11:21 AM | Updated: 11:39 am
Sky watchers are abuzz about Tuesday’s total solar eclipse, the only one of the year and the first since 2010.
The eclipse is only visible in person from slivers of northern Australia and parts of the South Pacific, but you can still catch it from the comfort of your computer when it begins at 12:35 p.m. PST.
The online Slooh Space Camera is broadcasting a live feed (see above) from a site near the city of Cairns, in the Australian state of Queensland. Officials say it should be a spectacular sight since the eclipse gets underway around sunrise local time.
“We are ecstatic to have a world-class team on-site in Cairns bringing the power and beauty of this spectacular event live to our worldwide audience,” Slooh president Patrick Paolucci said in a statement. “We are ramped up and ready to go to handle millions of viewers.”
Solar eclipses occur when the moon lines up with the sun in the sky, blotting out the solar disk from a viewer’s perspective on Earth.
The path of totality for the eclipse will be 108 miles (174 kilometers) wide and will traverse about 9,000 miles over a three-hour period, Slooh officials said.
The next total solar eclipse won’t happen until March 2015 in the Northern Atlantic region, though a “hybrid” eclipse — which shifts between total and annular at different points on the globe — will be seen in parts of the Atlantic and Africa in November 2013.
