22:40

Parts of Australia today saw up to 50% of the sun shielded by the moon.



Those near the top end of the Northern Territory had the best view in the country, with about half the sun covered after 10am. Far north Queensland saw a little less at 11.21am, and most people in Western Australia would have been able to see about 10% of the sun blocked.

In Darwin dozens of people crowded the CBD mall to hear from Geoff Carr, who described himself as “not quite an umbraphile, but pretty close to it”, and look through his variety of eclipse-viewing tools.

Others made pinhole projectors from two pieces of paper, while some had fashioned welding glass into a viewer. Passersby lined up to look at the sun through Carr’s large telescope and German solar filter.

The 50% eclipse peaked at exactly 10.17am as Carr explained to the crowd it would take about another hour and 15 minutes to completely clear.

“Every eclipse is unique,” Carr, an astronomy enthusiast and star tour operator, told the Guardian.

Lynne, a tourist visiting from Guernsey, said she liked looking at it through the cardboard framed solar glasses, rather than the – extremely expensive – telescope.

“I thought it was absolutely amazing [through the telescope], you could see all the bubbles on the outside of the sun, because I thought the sun was round, but obviously it isn’t,” she told the Guardian.

“I preferred the glasses because it sort of dulls down the image and you just get the sun as an orange shape. But it’s absolutely amazing to come from one side of the world to the other and see this. Superb.”