Astronomers and scientists joined tourists, commuters and schoolchildren to witness what was billed as the most impressive solar eclipse since 1999

The sun also eclipses, to misquote Ernest Hemingway. After hours of near-despairing reports insisting the clouds were too thick, sky-gazers at Newquay in Cornwall – positioned to be among the first in the UK to glimpse a phenomenon that has thrilled and terrified human beings for millennia – excitedly reported a hazy nibble out of a misty pale orange ball was visible just before 8.30am – narrowly beaten by a much sharper image from Madrid.



As millions of eyes and camera lenses peered hopefully towards the sky for what was promised as the most impressive solar eclipse since 1999, it wasn’t a horrible morning, merely – across much of the UK and northern Europe – as grey as a politician’s suit.

The British chancellor, George Osborne, tweeted excitedly just before 9am: “On train to West Midlands have just seen the solar eclipse underway - brilliant.”

The darkness was deepest at a spot in the Norwegian sea, just below the Arctic Circle, lasting for almost three minutes. Though that was inaccessible even to the most passionate eclipse chaser, some 2,000 people defied warnings that they risked both frostbite and polar bear attack, and made it to the remote Norwegian islands of Svalbard, doubling the local population. They were rewarded with clear skies and spectacular views, and they cheered as the sun was blotted out for 2.5 minutes.



“I was just blown away. I couldn’t believe it,” said Hilary Castle, 58, from London.

“It was just fabulous, just beautiful and at the same time a bit odd and it was too short,” said Mary Rannestad, 60, from Minnesota.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest People watch the cloudy sky for the eclipse in Torshavn, Faeroe Islands. Photograph: Matt Dunham/AP

There was intense disappointment in the Faroe Islands further south, the only other place on land where the eclipse was total. An estimated 8,000 people turned up in the capital, Torshavn. “It was overcast, there was rain and wind, you could see nothing,” said Gabor Lantos, a tourist from Hungary. Some were so fed up that they demanded their money back from tour operators, and were still arguing when the clouds finally parted at 9.42am.

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Jill and Valerie Lucas, who travelled from Pennsylvania, were entranced by the eerie darkness, and told Sky News “This is a thrill in itself, to be this dark at nine o’clock in the morning – it’s like nine o’clock at night.”

All around Europe, goggles and home-made pinhole cameras were brought out alongside fancy lenses and filters. Many had set up camera positions overnight, and the watchers included astronomers and other scientists, flocks of television crews, millions of amateur enthusiasts, and many who more who arrived late for work after breaking their journeys to gaze up in hope of witnessing one of the greatest free shows on earth.



George Osborne (@George_Osborne) On train to West Midlands have just seen the solar eclipse underway - brilliant

In the UK, Bristol had clear blue skies, and champagne corks popped as the eclipse became manifest. The best spot to view the eclipse from Truro, Cornwall, turned out to be the crown court car park high above the cathedral’s gothic spires, where lawyers, judges and criminals paused to take in the show.

Barrister Adrian Chaplin, who came equipped with a piece of dark glass from a welder’s mask, described the eclipse as “simply stunning”. “When you see the disc sliding across it stops you short,” he said, before hurrying off for a trial.

In nearby Victoria Gardens, shopworkers Kathryn Connelly and Morwenna Davey arrived with Bucks Fizz and Jaffa Cakes to hold a breakfast time eclipse party. “This sort of thing doesn’t happen very often,” said Connelly, “So we thought we’d make an event of it.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The view from Backwell in Somerset. Photograph: REX

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From Orkney to Cornwall, however, much of the the sky was wrapped in low grey cloud. In London, many headed for the hills to the north of the city, and lined bridges across the Thames, but the capital wore a lid of almost opaque cloud, though the faithful insisted it became a darker shade of grey at around 9.30am.

In Manchester’s Piccadilly Gardens, several hundred people gathered to watch the eclipse, including one of the city’s more entrepreneurial residents with a Jiffy bag full of scraps of welding glass he was hawking for £2 a go.



Ben Warburton bought a piece. “He said he was a teacher but the kids hadn’t turned up yet. Unless it was a blag,” said Warburton, tailing off as the penny dropped. But never mind: “It was awesome, worth being a bit late for work.”

Simon, a 43-year-old locksmith, was wearing a pair of sunglasses and enjoying the spectacle by rolling a cigarette. “I’m not blind yet,” he said, bemoaning the clouds that kept obscuring the show.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Schoolchildren at Greenwich Observatory in London. Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian

“Typical Manchester. It was lovely and sunny yesterday and today it’s cloudy. Happens every time.” A young boy walked up and said he only realised what was going on when he got on the bus. “We should have these things more often,” said Simon. “See, it makes strangers talk to each other.”

At the Callanish standing stones on Lewis – one of Scotland’s most impressive prehistoric monuments – a motley assortment of television crews, local people, and New Age types who had come specially to a monument believed to be linked to ancient beliefs about the influence of the skies on the fortunes of mankind, had their faith rewarded as the dense bank of cloud blotting out the sun began to break up just in time.

Watchers at many sites reported the eerie silence that accompanies an eclipse in the countryside: Chrissie Day, watching from 1,400ft up in the North Pennines, reported half an hour before the eclipse would have been at its height in her area: “it already feels and sounds different, it’s very quiet. The birds are quieter and even the new-born lambs are quiet for this hour of the day.” At Newlyn in Cornwall, the temperature was reported to have dropped by at least three degrees on an already chilly morning.

BBC Weather (@bbcweather) You can see the shadow cast by #Eclipse2015 on these images from space. Much darker over UK at 9.30am. Alex D pic.twitter.com/lqUND9AidX

The BBC’s Sky at Night, the world’s longest-running science programme, had an unrivalled record of having to keep experts talking through live relays of entirely invisible astronomical phenomena, but the channel’s relative newcomer, Stargazing Live, set up camp at Leicester, one of the places where the skies did clear. The observatory at Jodrell Bank in Cheshire also had a perfect view of the sky.

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The parents of science-mad George Higginson, who died aged 10 in a road accident in 2009, gave away 28,000 pairs of special eclipse glasses in his memory, to schools in their area of Lancashire. “He would have been up all night with anticipation and excitement, and pestered everyone to death and never got off our case,” his father said. They hope eventually to restore a historic Lancaster observatory, with a telescope in their son’s name.