Nigerians, get ready for a Solar Eclipse on Sunday November 3, 2013!

Guess what?
This Sunday, November 3 2013, there will be a solar eclipse, a rare one called Hybrid Solar Eclipse.

image: simple.wikipedia.org

Here is the main text of Wikipedia's page on Solar eclipse of November 3, 2013

A total solar eclipse will occur on November 3, 2013. It is a hybrid eclipse of the Sun with a magnitude of 1.0159. Totality will be visible from the northern Atlantic Ocean (east of Florida) to Africa (Gabon (landfall), R. Congo, DR Congo, Uganda), with maximum of 1 minute and 39 seconds visible from the Atlantic Ocean south of Ivory Coast and Ghana.

Here's my informed commentary:

A hybrid eclipse is a very rare type of eclipse, less than 5% of solar eclipses (on record) are hybrid. There are four types of solar eclipses:

Total Eclipse
A total eclipse occurs when the dark silhouette of the Moon completely obscures the intensely bright light of the Sun, allowing the much fainter solar corona to be visible. During any one eclipse, totality occurs at best only in a narrow track on the surface of Earth.

Annular Eclipse
An annular eclipse occurs when the Sun and Moon are exactly in line, but the apparent size of the Moon is smaller than that of the Sun. Hence the Sun appears as a very bright ring, or annulus, surrounding the dark disk of the Moon

Hybrid Eclipse
A hybrid eclipse (also called annular/total eclipse) shifts between a total and annular eclipse. At certain points on the surface of Earth it appears as a total eclipse, whereas at other points it appears as annular. Hybrid eclipses are comparatively rare.

Partial Eclipse
A partial eclipse occurs when the Sun and Moon are not exactly in line and the Moon only partially obscures the Sun. This phenomenon can usually be seen from a large part of Earth outside of the track of an annular or total eclipse. However, some eclipses can only be seen as a partial eclipse, because the umbra passes above the Earth's polar regions and never intersects Earth's surface.

According to UniverseToday --

Nearly all of Africa and the southern Mediterranean region including Spain will see partial phases of the eclipse, while greatest totality occurs just off of the coast of Liberia and heads for first landfall on the African continent over Wonga Wongue Reserve in Gabon. At this point, the duration of totality will already have shrunk back down to 1 minute and 7 seconds. The shadow of the Moon will then cross central Africa, headed for a short but brilliant sunset total eclipse over Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia.

And according to Space.com --

The moon will blot out the sun Sunday (Nov. 3) in an eclipse that will be visible from eastern North America to the Middle East.

Sunday's celestial event is a relatively rare occurrence known as a hybrid solar eclipse. It will begin as an annular or "ring of fire" eclipse along the path of totality, then shift to a total eclipse as the moon's shadow sweeps across our planet.

What you'll observe depends on where you live. Skywatchers in the eastern United States, northeastern South America, southern Europe, the Middle East and most of Africa will be treated to a partial solar eclipse, while people along the path of totality in central Africa will see the sun totally obscured by Earth's nearest neighbor for a few dramatic moments. 


Taking an informed guess, it seems Nigerians will be able to see a total eclipse, perhaps for some seconds. Anyway go get a No. 14 Welders' Goggle. It's gonna happen around noon, so I read.