‘A spectacle of beauty’: Annular solar eclipse this weekend
A solar eclipse will darken skies across parts of North America this weekend — one of two must-see celestial events over the next six months that the continent won’t see again for years.
So if you have fear of missing out, be prepared, because the next solar eclipses in Canada this century are few and far between.
The next eclipse will be 2033, though that one will barely scrape the northern edges of the Yukon. Following that, a total eclipse will happen in 2044, followed by annular eclipses in 2048 and 2057.
Two more eclipses will happen between 2061 and 2080, with three occurring between 2081 and 2100.
Technically, Saturday’s eclipse will be annular, not total — a term meaning the moon won’t quite entirely block out the sun, resulting in a sliver of sunlight and the common phrase ‘ring of fire’ eclipse.
Also, in Canada, the weekend event will only be a partial eclipse despite it starting out west of B.C.’s Vancouver Island. However, it will then track southeast, making landfall in Oregon before travelling towards Texas, Mexico and South America before disappearing over the Atlantic.
In its trek across eight U.S. states, the path of annularity will be around 320 kilometres wide, and will take less than an hour to travel from Oregon to Texas. Those along the path will see the ring of fire for around four minutes.
In Vancouver and parts of B.C.’s Southern Interior, viewers will experience 80 per cent of the eclipse, with the prairies at 70 to 50 per cent. Eastern Canada will only see 10 to 20 per cent.
In B.C., the partial eclipse will start at 8:10 a.m., with a midpoint of 9:22 a.m., and ending at 10:42 a.m.
“People along the (eclipse path) from Oregon to Texas will see about one per cent of light (around the moon),
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