Observers across the North Atlantic will witness the first solar eclipse of 2025 this coming weekend.
Got clear skies this weekend? If clouds cooperate, observers in the North Atlantic and surrounding regions may witness a rare spectacle: a partial solar eclipse. This is the second eclipse of 2025, and bookends the first eclipse season of the year. The season started with March 14th total lunar eclipse. Depending where you are observing from, this is a shallow to a deep partial, ‘almost’ total solar eclipse.
The eclipse tracks across Europe, northwestern Africa and the north Atlantic and Arctic region on Saturday, March 29th. The eclipse begins over the central Atlantic at 8:51 Universal Time (UT), and viewers stationed along a line running from Norfolk Virginia up through the eastern shore of Lake Erie into Ontario eastward will see a slight nip of the Moon taken out of the solar disk at sunrise.
The viewing region for Saturday’s eclipse, along with maximum times and obscuration percentages. Credit: The Atlas of Solar Eclipses: 2020 to 2045/Michael Zeiler/Michael Bakich
The scene gets even more dramatic along the New England coast up through the Canadian Maritime provinces, where viewers will see a bizarre-looking ‘rising horns’ of the glowing Sun seeming to emerge east from the Atlantic ocean as the eclipse is already underway at sunrise. What would ancient mariners of yore have made of such a devilish scene?
The rising eclipsed Sun, as seen from Halifax, Nova Scotia. Credit: Stellarium.
Mid-eclipse occurs around 10:47 UT high in the Canadian Arctic, and the eclipse departs the Earth over remote northern Russia at 12:44 UT. Sites through Europe and Africa will see the eclipse transpire in its entirety.
At its maximum, the Moon will obscure the Sun by 94%, though most observers to the south will see considerably less. How much does totality miss the Earth by? The clue comes from estimating the eclipse gamma, showing how far the center of the Moon’s shadow passes from the center of the Earth. This weekend’s eclipse has a gamma of 1.0405, suggesting a pass 260 kilometers (162 miles) from the surface of the Earth, over the high Canadian Arctic.
A sunrise eclipse over the Delaware Breakwater Lighthouse at Lewes Beach on the morning of June 10th, 2021. Credit: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani
Can the eclipse be seen from space? Certainly, a well-placed observer in low-Earth orbit would see a very fleeting total solar eclipse. It’s doubtful that astronauts on either the International Space Station or China’s Tiangong will actually witness totality this time around, as the Moon’s shadow passes over high polar latitudes. Solar observing satellites, including European Space Agency’s still operational Proba-2 have witnessed swift partial solar eclipses from Earth orbit in the past.
NASA has a site listing times for select locations along the eclipse footprint.
Proper eye safety precautions must be taken during all stages of a partial solar eclipse. Never look at the Sun unprotected, and only use solar glasses from a trusted source with the proper ISO 12312-2 rating stamped on them. Be sure to inspect those glasses from previous eclipses prior to use for pinholes or cracks. Only use binoculars or telescopes with filters equipped for observing the Sun. These will fit tight over the aperture of the instrument, and can’t come off in high winds or to curious prying hands.
You can also safely project the Sun with a homemade solar projector, or what’s known as a sun funnel. Gaps in latticework, tree leaves and even spaghetti strainers (my fave) can make great ‘eclipse projectors’ as well, showing a batch of ‘crescent suns’ strewn across the sidewalk.
Crescent suns in projection. Credit: Dave Dickinson
An eclipse at sunrise also offers a chance to nab the view on the horizon along with foreground objects. A DSLR equipped with a dense variable neutral density (ND) filter (15- to 20-stop) works great for this. Again, you’ll be using this for the camera only, NOT for visual use. Physically block off the camera’s view finder to avoid accidentally looking through it, and keep the ND filter on the lens and start with the very darkest setting. A bright Sun can ruin an exposed camera sensor as well.
You’ll want to start and be set up before local sunrise. Can you spy Venus? Shining at -4.1 magnitude, you should be able to follow brilliant Venus right up into the daytime sky. Fresh off of inferior conjunction on March 23rd, Venus is 13 degrees west of the Sun during the eclipse.
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An animation of Saturday’s eclipse. Credit: NASA/A.T. Sinclair/GSFC
Tales of the Saros
This eclipse is member 21 of the 71 eclipses in saros series 149. This saros started way back on August 21st, 1664 and runs all the way out to September 28th, 2926. As the cycle matures, it will produce its very first brief 1 minute 24 second total solar eclipse for a small remote patch of far eastern Russia on April 9th, 2043. This non-central eclipse is one saros period (~18 years) from now.
Solar activity is worth watching for and pointing out during any public observing event. We’re coming off of the peak for solar cycle number 25 this year, so expect a solar disk dappled with sunspots. As of writing this, six small numbered sunspot groups are now prominent, and whatever rotates into view now will be visible on eclipse day.
Eclipse horns at sunrise as seen from Lancaster, Pennsylvania on the morning of June 10th, 2021. Credit: Marion Haligowski.
Weather prospects for eclipse regions look to be mostly cloudy for the U.S. northeast and eastern Canada, versus partly cloudy for the United Kingdom and Europe. North Atlantic weather is notoriously fickle in late March. Keep in mind, however, that you don’t need a crystal clear sky to see a solar eclipse… just a good view of the Sun. Seeing a partially eclipsed Sun filtered through heavy cloud can prove to be a memorable sight as well. We witnessed just such a strange view watching the 2017 total solar eclipse from the Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute in western North Carolina. Pivotal Weather is a great resource for cloud cover prospects, come eclipse day.
That’s it until the final eclipse season of 2025, marked by a total lunar eclipse on September 7th for Australia and the Indian Ocean region, and the last solar eclipse of the year on September 21st with a partial across the South Pacific and New Zealand.
Don’t miss a chance to see the Moon just miss the Sun this weekend, during the first solar eclipse of the year.