Partial solar eclipse in Falkirk part of lunar spectacular

Many people across the world grabbed their eclipse glasses to see the solar eclipse today.
Partial solar eclipse over Falkirk today. (Pic: Michael Gillen)Partial solar eclipse over Falkirk today. (Pic: Michael Gillen)
Partial solar eclipse over Falkirk today. (Pic: Michael Gillen)

It is an annular eclipse where the sun is obscured by a shadow of the moon.

This occurs when the sun, moon and Earth are aligned.

This alignment coincided with a new moon which indicates when the Moon is closest to the ecliptic plane- the imaginary path containing Earth's orbit around the sun.

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The eclipse caused the sun to appear as a very bright ring, or annulus, in a phenomenon dubbed as the "ring of fire".

However, observers in the UK and Ireland saw a crescent sun instead of a ring, as this will be a partial eclipse.

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