Sunday morning will bring a double-play of space and time activity for people in Massachusetts, New England and the U.S. East Coast, highlighted by the 2013 hybrid solar eclipse at sunrise.
First things first: Daylight Saving Time 2013 comes to an end at 2 a.m. on Nov. 3 – don't forget to turn your clocks back an hour, if they don't do it themselves.
Next up: A partial solar eclipse. If you live along the Eastern Seaboard, you've got to be up right at sunrise to get the most of this celestial event's effect.
While it's a partial eclipse on the East Coast, there also will be a total, or annular, eclipse on Sunday – thus why it's called a hybrid eclipse. People in central Africa and those on a ship, boat, raft or treading water along a stretch of the Atlantic Ocean will be able to experience the total eclipse.
If you don't plan to get up at sunrise, or would like to see the total eclipse, Slooh.com will provide livestream coverage from Africa. Or, you can just sit back and relax and watch this video, which has a countdown timer to the eclipse:
Patrick Rowan, who writes the monthly "Skywatch" column for The Republican/MassLive.com, wrote:
On Sunday Morning, the sun is going to rise almost half-covered by the moon for those of us in Western Massachusetts. In fact all of the East Coast of North America and much of South America will see the partially eclipsed sun as it peaks over the eastern horizon. Those planning to view this event should remember that we turn the clocks back an hour at 2 a.m. that morning, so sunrise will come at 6:26 a.m. for Greater Springfield, about an hour earlier than the previous morning. The later you first spot the sun, the less it will be eclipsed by the moon. Use appropriate eye protection, or better yet, try punching a small hole in a piece of paper or thin cardboard to project the sun's image onto another piece of paper a couple of feet away. Using the projection method with binoculars or telescopes requires strict caution.
The total phase of this eclipse will be visible from only a narrow strip of the central Atlantic and parts of central Africa.
According to the NASA website on eclipses, this is the second solar eclipse of 2013 and fifth, and final, overall – there were three lunar eclipses. NASA has this to say about why Sunday's eclipse is so interesting:
The final event of 2013 is the most interesting eclipse of the year. It is one of the rare hybrid or annular/total eclipses in which some sections of the path are annular while other parts are total. The duality comes about when the vertex of the Moon's umbral shadow pierces Earth's surface at some locations, but falls short of the planet along other sections of the path. The unusual geometry is due to the curvature of Earth's surface that brings some geographic locations into the umbra while other positions are more distant and enter the antumbral rather than umbral shadow. In most cases, the central path begins annular, changes to total for the middle portion of the track, and reverts back to annular towards the end of the path. However, November 3 eclipse is even more unique because the central path to begins annular and ends total. Because hybrid eclipses occur near the vertex of the Moon's umbral/antumbral shadows, the central path is typically quite narrow.
Sky & Telescope offers this guide to how to watch a partial solar eclipse safely.
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