ANYER, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesians were among the few worldwide to witness an eclipse of the sun Monday, but even there the view was hampered in most places by cloudy skies.
Dozens gathered in the western coastal town of Anyer as the moon passed across the sun's path at 4:40 p.m., covering 92 percent of the sun's diameter and leaving a white, flaming ring of fire that lasted about four minutes.
"I'm old, but I still think this is magical," said Roanna Makmur, 66, who drove several hours with eight friends to witness the sight, known as an annular eclipse, because it does not completely black out the sun.
"I can't help but feel the greatness of God," she said, as other onlookers cheered. "Anyone who passed up this opportunity, really missed out."
Annular eclipses, which are considered far less important to astronomers than total eclipses of the sun, occur about 66 times a century and can only be viewed by people in the narrow band along its path.
A relatively small number of people were in the best places to view Monday's eclipse, said Jay Pasachoff, professor of astronomy at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, and chair of the International Astronomical Union's Working Group on Eclipses.
Aside from several regions in Indonesia, the world's largest archipelago, only villagers on a tiny South Pacific island group known as the Cocos, administered by Australia, were to have been able to see the ring-shaped corona, he wrote in a statement.
A partial eclipse — with coverage ranging from 1 percent to 84 percent of the sun's diameter — was to be visible in the southern third of Africa, in southeastern India, and southeast Asia, as well as the western part of Australia.
The last total eclipse of the sun was Aug. 1, 2008, and was visible in Canada, across northern Greenland, the Arctic, central Russia, Mongolia and China.
The next total eclipse will be July 22, 2009, and will be visible in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, China and some Japanese islands.
By ZAKKI HAKIM
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