This Friday, the 20th March, there will be a partial solar eclipse, where we can watch the moon pass in front of the sun, blocking a whopping 94% of the sun. Further North at the Faroe Islands there will be a total eclipse, but down here we will still see an impressive partial eclipse, if we have clear skies of course!
The maximum eclipse (when only a sliver of sun will be left uncovered) will be around 9.30am throughout the UK, although this varies over a few minutes depending on your location. The eclipse begins at around 8.30 and ends at 10.43 (times varying depending where in the country you are).
Please don’t look at the sun directly as this can damage your eyesight. The best way to see the eclipse is to use special solar eclipse glasses (you can buy them for approximately £3.00 from Harrison Telescopes).
If you don’t have the solar glasses you can use a colander and a piece of white paper to project the image of the eclipsing sun. Simply hold the colander up allowing the sun to shine through the holes and then hold the white paper/card approximately 50 cm away to increase the contrast. Try varying the distance of the colander to get the sharpest image.
Another method to see the eclipse is to take a piece of white card. Cut a square in the centre and cover the square with a piece of tin foil. Pierce a pin hole in the centre of the tinfoil and hold it up to the sun with another piece of white card a few feet away. You should see a perfect circle on the second piece of white cards, move the card with the tinfoil and hole backwards and forwards until you get a good clear circle and watch the circle shrink as the moon passes in front of the sun.
Hope we have clear skies to see it!
J x
P.s. Thank you to my Dad for all the great information! 🙂 x
Great and helpful post. We’ve orders the special glasses for us to see it. I can’t wait!!
Excellent! Hoping for a clear morning, will be great to see! 🙂 x
Brilliant! I can’t wait to see it with my son. I’ve also ordered the special glasses!
X
Yay! Fingers crossed for good weather on Friday! 🙂 xx
I didn’t know this, so thanks for the info and tip. Thanks for linking up to the #BinkyLinky
No problem, hope you get to see it! 🙂 x
I am SO looking forward to this!! Luke is with his dads for the weekend and they’re in Wigan so maybe they’ll get a better eclipse than we will…I’m a little sad I don’t get to share this event with him. But I am super excited and it’s the first day in forever I don’t have to get up at the crack of dawn…but I know I can’t miss this! I was so young the last time I saw the eclipse. I am possibly far more excited than I should be.
These are some really useful tips for viewing it all – we don’t have the special glasses so i’m going to be using these methods! 😀 Ray xx
I’m so excited too! We went down to Devon when I was a kid to watch the total solar eclipse, it was great, but looking forward to this one when I’ll understand it more! Really hoping that there will be some gaps in the cloud! We have the glasses, but will try the other things too! 🙂 xx
I’ve been hearing a lot about this today from my four year old who watched it on a big screen at school. It’s so cute to hear her explain it all. Thanks for linking up to #sundaystars xxx
It’s great to see kids get so involved! 🙂 x