People around the world looked skyward yesterday to watch the moon eclipse the sun, writes Ali Bracken.
The annular eclipse, in which the moon covers 90 per cent of the sun, was fully visible in a narrow band across Portugal and Spain.
In Spain, where it was the first time such an eclipse had been seen since 1764, thousands of office workers streamed into streets as an orange disc appeared around the black sphere of the moon, causing the sky to darken and temperatures to drop.
"What really surprised me was the drop in the temperature," said Luis Obiols, a meteorologist who watched the sky from Madrid's Planetarium.
According to US space agency Nasa, a partial eclipse was also seen within a broader path of the moon's penumbral shadow, which included other parts of Europe, western Asia, the Middle East, India and most of Africa.
However, weather conditions meant that few people saw the partial eclipse in Ireland. An annular eclipse occurs when the moon covers the centre of the sun but not its edges, leaving a ring (or annulus) of the sun visible around its edges. It resembles a ring of fire.
A partial eclipse occurred in the vast majority of counties that viewed the solar eclipse, including Ireland. In the extreme south of Ireland, the moon covered 75 per cent of the sun, while in the north 60 per cent of the sun was covered.
There were brief reported sightings in Clonmel, Co Tipperary, and in Co Antrim, said David Moore of Astronomy Ireland.
The last time a total eclipse occurred in Ireland was in 1724, and the last annular eclipse took place here 13 year later, Mr Moore said. There will be a total eclipse in Turkey next year, and another in 2017 in North America.