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How to catch this week’s rare solar eclipse

Two sites, Slooh and the Virtual Telescope Project will have live coverage of the eclipse. Courtesy Tom Stefanac

TORONTO — The first eclipse of the year takes place on Friday, and it’s a special one.

Eclipses are somewhat rare, but an eclipse on the day of the spring equinox is even more so: the next one will happen in 2034.

The animation below shows the path of the eclipse. Daylight is the lighter area, and nighttime the darker. The shaded oval is the area of the eclipse.

How to catch this week’s rare solar eclipse - image
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

The darkest part of the eclipse occurs at 9:13 UT about 700 km south of Greenland, as marked by the black streak in the animation, but this will occur in an area of the world where few people live.

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Eclipse map/figure/table/predictions courtesy of Fred Espenak, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

Unfortunately, as you can see, we won’t be able to see this solar eclipse here in Canada– at least in person. But there is another way.

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Two sites, Slooh and the Virtual Telescope Project will have live coverage of the eclipse.

 READ MORE: 7 astronomical events you don’t want to miss in 2015

But if you’re waiting for the next eclipse, on April 4 a lunar eclipse will be visible at one stage or another — ie. partial lunar, total. Another lunar eclipse occurs on Sept. 28.

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