Sky-gazers in awe of rare total eclipse

AUSTRALIA: Tens of thousands of sky-gazers flocked to Australia’s tropical north Wednesday to watch the moon block out the sun in one of nature’s greatest phenomena -- a total solar eclipse.

All eyes and cameras turned to the heavens as the clouds parted over the state of Queensland and the moon slowly moved between the Earth and the sun, creating a missing “bite” that gradually increased in size.

Clouds had threatened to spoil the party and huge cheers erupted when they cleared to give awe-struck eclipse hunters a perfect view of totality -- when the moon completely covers the sun and a faint halo or corona appears. “Wow, insects and birds gone quiet,” one tourist, Geoff Scott, tweeted. Another, Stuart Clark, said: “This it it. Totality now. Utterly beautiful.”

The path of the eclipse got under way shortly after daybreak when the moon’s shadow, or umbra, fell in the Garig Gunak Barlu National Park in the Northern Territory, about 250 kilometres (155 miles) east of Darwin.

The umbra then moved eastward before hitting north Queensland -- one of the few places it could be viewed by humans and where tourists and scientists gathered to witness the region’s first total solar eclipse in 1,300 years.

Totality lasted just over two minutes from 6.38am (2038 GMT Tuesday), with eclipse watchers donning special glasses to protect their eyes.

When it happened the early chatter of birds and animals was replaced by an eerie silence as the moon overtook the sun, casting a shadow that plunged the land into darkness, with temperatures dropping.

AFP