From boats bobbing on the Great Barrier Reef, to hot-air balloons hovering over the rainforest, and the hilltops and beaches in between, tens of thousands of scientists, tourists and amateur astronomers watched as the sun, moon and earth aligned and plunged northern Australia into darkness during a total solar eclipse.
Stubborn clouds that many feared would ruin the view parted – somewhat – in north Queensland, defying forecasts of a total eclipse-viewing bust and relieving spectators who had fanned out to glimpse the celestial phenomenon on Wednesday.
“Immediately before, I was thinking, ‘Are we going to see this?’ And we just had a fantastic display – it was just beautiful,” said Terry Cuttle of the Astronomical Association of Queensland, who has seen a dozen total solar eclipses over the years. “And right after it finished, the clouds came back again. It really adds to the drama of it.”
Spectators whooped and clapped with delight as the moon passed between the sun and earth, leaving a slice of the continent’s northeast in sudden darkness.
Starting just after dawn, the eclipse cast its 150-kilometre shadow in Australia’s Northern Territory, crossed the northeast tip of the country and was swooping east across the South Pacific, where no islands are in its direct path. A partial eclipse would have been visible from east Indonesia, the eastern half of Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and southern parts of Chile and Argentina.
Totality – the darkness that happens at the peak of the eclipse – lasted just over two minutes in the parts of Australia where it was visible.
