A solar eclipse will be visible over a wide area of the north polar region
on Friday, March 20.
England is not in the path of totality, but it's close enough so that a large
part of the sun will be covered, and it will be a spectacular sight.
For Londoners, the eclipse begins Friday morning at 8:25 AM,when the
moon just begins to eat away at the sun's edge. It advances slowly, as more
and more of the sun disappears, and reaches maximum at 9:31 AM. Then
the obscured part of the sun begins to shrink, and the complete disk is
restored by the end of the eclipse at 10:41AM, after a period of 2 hours
16 minutes during which part of the sun appears to be missing.
The catch in observing the eclipse is:
YOU MUST NOT LOOK AT THE SUN.
Staring at the sun for a period of time can cause permanent damage to
your vision, even though you don't feel it while it's happening.
This is not a useful place to try and give you complete instructions or
suggestions for observing the sun over a period of hours. Please look
in your local newspaper, or search online for phrases like "safe eclipse
viewing".
