Total solar eclipse Tuesday

As the moon moves between Earth and the sun, a lunar shadow will be cast along a hundred-mile-wide (160-kilometer-wide) path, traveling virtually the entire length of the southern Pacific Ocean over several hours and making landfall early Wednesday in Australia (Tuesday afternoon in the United States). 

"The best places on land to see totality"-when the sun appears to be completely blotted out by the moon-"is along 62 miles [100 kilometers] of coastline on northeast Australia, overlooking the Great Barrier Reef and the Coral Sea," said eclipse expert and National Geographic Society grantee Jay Pasachoff, an astronomer at Williams College in Massachusetts.

"Anywhere to the east, one has to be on a ship to see totality, and there are only a couple that will be in the path."

The total solar eclipse will be visible in Garig Ganak Barlu National Park in Australia's Northern Territory at about 6:35 a.m. Wednesday, local time, and then in Cairns, the only city that will be able to see totality. There, sky-watchers can enjoy two minutes of the total eclipse, Kazinform refers to National Geographic.

The eclipse will then sweep over the Pacific Ocean until reaching the final moments of the totality about 500 miles (800 kilometers) west of Chile 's coastline at 23:48 Universal time (UT).  The longest duration of totality, lasting 4 minutes and 2 seconds, will occur at 22:11 UT over the open ocean.

Meanwhile a still-striking partial eclipse-where only part of the sun is covered-will be seen within a broader track stretching for thousands of miles across much of the rest of the South Pacific Basin, including New Zealand, Antarctica, and South America.

For the lucky few along the path, astronomers recommend using either a professionally manufactured solar filter in front of a telescope or camera, or eclipse-viewing glasses that sufficiently reduce the sun's brightness and filter out damaging ultraviolet and infrared radiation.

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