The forthcoming solar eclipse is actually a total eclipse, although only viewable as a partial eclipse in the UK.

A total solar eclipse occurs on Friday, 1 August, 2008, in northern Canada, the Arctic, and Asia.

It is known as the China Olympic Total Solar Eclipse because a week later the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games will begin.

The eclipse begins in far northern Canada, at about 10:24BST; the zone of totality is 206km wide, and the eclipse will last for 1 minute 30 seconds. The track then heads north-east, crossing northern Greenland at about 10:30, and passes near the pole before dipping down into Russia.

The eclipse reaches the Russian mainland at 11:10BST, with a path 232km wide, and a duration of 2 minutes 26 seconds. Greatest eclipse occurs shortly after, at 11:21BST, when the path will be 236km wide, and the duration up to 2 minutes 27 seconds.
The path then moves south-east, crossing into Mongolia and just clipping Kazakhstan at around 11:58BST. The path here is 252km wide, but the duration is down to 2 minutes 10 seconds. The path then runs down the China-Mongolia border, ending in China at 12:18BST, with an eclipse lasting 1 minute 27 seconds at sunset.

The partial eclipse will be visible over north-eastern Canada, most of Asia and Europe, and the Middle East between 09:04:07BST and 13:38:28BST.

For the UK, the event starts between 09:23-09:30BST (earlier the further north you are), finishes between 10:59-11:11BST (earlier the further west you are), with a maximum of 30% of the Sun covered around 10:12-10:18BST(earlier the further west you are).

This animation shown illustrates the motion of the shadow of the Moon at five minute intervals - it shows the grey penumbral shadow where the eclipse will be seen as a partial one and the much smaller black umbral shadow where the eclipse will be seen as a total one. The clock is in UT, which is 1 hour behind BST.



More information:
Hermit Eclipse: Total Solar Eclipse: August 1 2008
Total Eclipse of the Sun: 2008 August 01

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