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Stargazers, astronomers and residents gathered at various locations last Thursday to watch the deepest solar eclipse to be seen in Bahrain in more than a century.
The annular eclipse, which occurs when the sun, moon and the earth are exactly in line but the size of the moon is visibly smaller than that of the sun, lasted from 6:35am until 7:59am.
During an annular eclipse, the sun appears as a very bright ring, or annulus, surrounding the dark disc of the moon.
While neighbours in the UAE and Saudi Arabia got to witness the ring of fire, in Bahrain, the phenomenon looked like a tilted crescent moon.
Professors from University of Bahrain gathered with their personal telescopes, while university students arrived with devices to measure the radiations and to register other academic aspects of the occurrence.
Bahrain’s top astronomer Dr Waheeb Al Nasser, who is also the chairman of the Bahrain Astronomical Society, told our sister newspaper, the GDN at the Royal Police Academy in Al Dur, that he saw the red sun with the naked eye at the time of sunrise.
However, everyone at the venue immediately donned special solar filter glasses when the eclipse started.
Waheeb said: “It was a fabulous sight at around 6.35am, it was red as I watched the sunrise with my naked eye – the sun was almost 95pc red. At about 7.15am, when the sun was about 50pc eclipsing we had to use the glasses and it was a fantastic sight.
“Those who could not make it to watch this will now have to wait until March 2034 to view such a beautiful sight.”
