As you may be aware, there is an upcoming *partial* Solar Eclipse early on the morning of Friday 10 May (just over a week away). The eclipse will be annular along a path across northern Australia, but partial for everyone else.
In Sydney for example, the eclipse begins at 7.50 am and ends at 10.14am. Mid-eclipse is at 8.57 am when 39% of the Sun’s diameter will be covered. At that time the Sun will be 24 degrees above the eastern horizon. Many other parts of Australia will see a similar amount or even more of the disk covered.
The eclipse can be safely viewed using a telescope equipped with a specialised solar filter or simply projecting the image through a small telescope. Cardboard framed ‘eclipse glasses’ meeting international standards are also safe to use if their instructions are followed. Suitable ‘eclipse glasses’ are available locally from reputable astronomy shops, public Observatories and Planetaria.
More information about the eclipse and safe ways to view it can be found in a Factsheet produced by the Astronomical Society of Australia (ASA). The sheet has been posted on the ASA’s Australian Astronomy web site (
http://www.astronomy.org.au). The Factsheet link is:
http://astronomy.org.au/education/factsheets/. You may wish to use this sheet to inform friends, students or the public about this event. The sheet may be freely copied for wide distribution provided the Australian Astronomy and ASA logos are retained.
John O’Byrne
Secretary
Astronomical Society of Australia
