Four ways to enjoy a solar eclipse

By Samantha Rolfe, Lecturer in Astrobiology and Principal Technical Officer at Bayfordbury Observatory, University of Hertfordshire

The kind of solar eclipses usually portrayed in films are total solar eclipses – a reasonably rare event. They’re likely what you think about when you hear the word eclipse.

A total eclipse is when the Moon and the Sun line up in the sky in such a way that the Moon blocks the entire face of the Sun – called totality. Somewhere on the Earth these occur approximately every 18 months.

But we can’t all experience totality every time as the shadow of the Moon tracks a narrow path over the surface of the Earth. Any given point on the Earth is only likely to experience this approximately…

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