Hi everyone, as you know from my last newsletter (http://ow.ly/kvztG) we are in the middle of a Tri-eclipse portal which spans April 25 – May 25, 2013. The bookend eclipses are minor lunar eclipses which serve as subtle doorways in and out of the portal. But the central eclipse – coming up this Thursday and Friday May 9 and 10 – is an Annular Solar Eclipse and is very powerful both in its visual quality and its effects.
In a Total Solar Eclipse, the moon blots out the sun completely. An Annular Solar Eclipse is similar to a Total Eclipse, but the Moon is further away from the Earth so the disk of the Moon isn’t quite big enough to fully cover the disk of the Sun. This creates the mesmerizing “Ring of Fire” effect, a sight sought by eclipse chasers the world over: a dark Moon completely surrounded by the brilliant light of the distant Sun.
Those in Australia, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands will be able to see the coveted Ring of Fire during this eclipse. In it’s totality, the moon will obscure 95% of the sun’s disk. A partial eclipse will be seen in a much broader path, which includes Australia, Indonesia, Oceania and much of the central Pacific Ocean.