SINGAPORE: Skywat­chers from Saudi Arabia and Oman to Pakistan and Singapore were treated to a rare “ring of fire” solar eclipse on Thursday.

Annular eclipses occur when the Moon is not close enough to the Earth to completely obscure the Sun, leaving a thin ring of the solar disc visible.

While these types of eclipses occur every year or two, they are only visible from a narrow band of Earth each time and it can be decades before the same pattern is repeated.

Depending on weather conditions, this year’s astronomical phenomenon was set to be visible from the Middle East across Pakis­tan, southern India and South­east Asia before ending over the northern Pacific.

Pakistan witnessed the penumbral eclipse from 07:30am till 13:06pm, partial eclipse from 08:34am till 12:01pm, total eclipse from 08:37am till 11:58am while the greatest eclipse was observed at 10:18am, assistant meteorologist Dawood Khan said.

Hundreds of amateur astronomers and photographers set up by Singapore’s harbour for what some described as a “once in a lifetime” event.

“The next one will happen in about 40 years I think,” said Jason Teng, 37, who took the day off work to photograph the eclipse.

The amateur astronomer used a special solar filter on his telescope as there is no safe period to observe an annular solar eclipse.

Alexander Alin 45, a geophysicist from Germany, travels around the world following eclipses.

“It’s only two minutes, but it’s so intense that you talk about it with your friends, family for the next month,” Alin said.

In southern India, people gathered on the beaches in Tamil Nadu to watch the event.

The eclipse even affected cricket, with play delayed by two hours in a first-class match between Mumbai and Rajkot.

The eastern state of Odisha declared a public holiday, with all government offices, courts, schools and colleges closed.

In Indonesia, hundreds of people gathered outside Jakarta Planetarium to watch the event using protective glasses supplied by the planetarium, hoping for clear skies at the time of maximum eclipse.

“I could see the eclipse this morning and now am very excited to see the peak though now it is cloudy,” said Chandra Ayu Dewi, 39, who arrived at 7am with her children.

Outside the narrow band where the “Ring of fire” effect can be observed, skywatchers would see a partial solar eclipse.

The next annual eclipse in June 2020 will be visible to a narrow band from Africa to northern Asia.

The following one in June 2021 will only be seen in the Arctic and parts of Canada, Greenland and the remote Russian far east.

Published in Dawn, December 27th, 2019