Watch the Moon Eat the Sun: The Partial Solar Eclipse on October 23 Visible in United States & Canada

Partial solar eclipses happen when the Moon comes between the Sun and the Earth, but they don’t align in a perfectly straight line. Because of this, the Moon only partially covers the Sun’s disc.

In a partial solar eclipse, the Sun looks like the Moon has taken a bite out of it. This is because the Moon casts the lighter, outer part of its shadow, the penumbra, on Earth

What we’ll see is a partial solar eclipse, where the Moon passes along a chord of the Sun’s face, never completely blocking it out. At maximum eclipse the Sun will look like a thick crescent, the dark disk of the Moon moving across it.

This is a very cool event, and it favors Canada and the United States; it’ll be visible in nearly the entirety of both countries. The exception is the extreme northeast, where the Sun will be setting as the eclipse starts (whether you see anything or not from that area depends on your exact position  http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/10/21/solar_eclipse_partial_eclipse_on_oct_23.html

Eclipse times for North American time zones  http://earthsky.org/tonight/partial-solar-eclipse-for-north-america-on-october-23

First, let’s get this out of the way: NEVER LOOK AT THE SUN WITHOUT PROPER FILTERS. You probably won’t do severe or permanent damage to your eyes by glancing at the Sun with your eyes alone, but I’d advise against it (especially for younger children, who have clearer lenses in their eyes that let through more damaging UV light) — and certainly against anything longer than a very brief glance. AND DON’T EVER EVER EVER LOOK AT THE SUN THROUGH A TELEPHOTO LENS, BINOCULARS, OR A TELESCOPE without proper filtration

Image credit: Bill Quinn

ECLIPSES DURING 2014

http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/OH/OH2014.html