Oz set to see partial solar eclipse

A partial eclipse will be visible across Australia on Tuesday afternoon, April 29.

It will be highest in the sky in Western Australia, including Perth and Albany, and it will be visible low in the sky near sunset in Melbourne and Sydney.

A small bit of Antarctica, an inaccessible part, will have an annular eclipse, that is an eclipse in which the Moon is a little farther than average from the Earth so that it doesn't entirely cover the Sun to make a total eclipse.

Jay Pasachoff, Chair of the International Astronomical Union's Working Group on Eclipses and a veteran of 58 solar eclipses, will be in Australia to see the Sun 65 per cent covered, a partial phase of this eclipse. At Perth and Albany in Western Australia, where the Sun's diameter will be 60 per cent-65 per cent covered by the Moon, the eclipse will start at 1:15 pm and end at 3:59 pm, with maximum coverage at 2:41 pm. The Sun will start at 38 degree high in the sky, about the width of four hands at the end of an outstretched arm, and end at one and a half hands high.

In Melbourne, the eclipse will occur from 3:58 to sunset before its actual end at 6:08 pm, starting 16 degree (about 1.5 hands) above the horizon with the Sun setting during the second half of the partial eclipse. In Sydney, the eclipse will occur from 4:13 pm to sunset, before its actual end at 6:10 pm, starting at 11 degree (about 1 hand) above the horizon with the Sun setting during the second half of the partial eclipse.