In pictures: Eclipse in Africa and Asia

[Rick]

( Including a few examples of how not to observe the Sun safely...  )

See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/8461625.stm

[mickw]

On Friday, Jan. 15, a solar eclipse graced parts of Asia and Africa. The moon got between Earth and the sun and blocked out most of the sun.

From space, looking down, the moon cast a big shadow on our planet. At 1:15 p.m. Calcutta time (7:45 UTC) on Jan. 15, NASA's Aqua satellite made an image of the moon shadow falling on India and the Bay of Bengal. The picture was released Saturday.

Unlike a total solar eclipse, when the moon perfectly and completely blocks out the sun, the moon was too far from Earth Friday and so it was too small to create a complete shadow. That left a fiery ring of sunlight around the edges of the moon. So the shadow on Earth was dark, but not complete.

The shadow spanned a north-south distance of about 185 miles (300 kilometers) on the surface, according to NASA, with the darkest part near the mid-point of the span. Even in the darkest part of the shadow, clouds are so reflective that the small amount of sunlight escaping around the edge of the moon's disk is enough to illuminate them for the satellite's view.

More:   Moon shadow