TODAY'S RARE HYBRID SOLAR ECLIPSE:

"It was a brilliant beautiful eclipse," reports eyewitness Eliot Herman. "We observed on a small island in the Montebello group off the coast of Australia very close to the center line." This is what he saw:

"Paul Maley made the arrangements and got the permissions," he adds. "There were only 15 of us, and it was really special to have the island to ourselves so far from civilization."
Maley was taking pictures alongside Herman. "This was my 82nd solar eclipse," Maley says. "At our location the eclipse lasted only 55 seconds, but it was spectacular. The sky was super clear following the recent passage of cyclone Ilsa." The exceptional transparency allowed him to capture several red prominences around the rim of the sun:

Now a marine conservation reserve, the islands were the site of three British atmospheric nuclear weapons tests in 1952 and 1956. Herman brought a Geiger counter to their observation site. "I tested a bunch of rocks and fragments but nothing was 'hot,'" he says. "The Montebellos are quite isolated. It was remarkable to have a chance to be here."
Today's hybrid eclipse was the first in almost 10 years, making it a rare event. Hybrid eclipses are a mixture of two types: annular and total. This one began as an annular eclipse over the Indian Ocean, transitioned into a total eclipse over western Australia, and ended as an annular eclipse over the South Pacific: map.
www.spaceweather.com

---