VIA SPACE.COM
Northern and eastern sections of North America will experience a weird and dramatic event on Thursday (June 10).
A partial solar eclipse will be visible, and for many, it will more or less coincide with sunrise. Only for places north of a line running roughly from Churchill, Manitoba, to Halifax, Nova Scotia, will the entire eclipse be visible from start to finish after the sun rises. Elsewhere, depending on where you are, if your sky is clear toward the east-northeast, the rising sun will appear slightly dented, deeply crescent shaped, or even ring shaped.
Across a swath of central and eastern Canada — encompassing the provinces of western and northern Ontario and a slice of northwest Quebec, as well as eastern Nunavut, Canada’s newest territory — viewers living within a path averaging about 390 miles (630 kilometers) wide will have a front-row seat to witness the rare and exciting spectacle of an annular or “ring of fire” solar eclipse.
Because the moon will be just 57 hours past apogee, its farthest point from Earth during its orbit, it will appear somewhat smaller than usual — smaller than the apparent disk of the sun. It is for this reason that viewers in the shadow’s center will get an annular rather than a total eclipse: the sun will become a brilliant ring (or annulus) of light encircling the moon’s dark silhouette for several minutes.
A possible bizarre and memorable sunrise
Early on the morning of June 10, an eerie and most unusual sight awaits residents who live around the northern Great Lakes, eastward to across New York state, New England and southeast Canada. At least four-fifths of the sun’s diameter will be eclipsed by the dark disk of the moon as the sun ascends above the east-northeast horizon.
Hundreds or thousands of years ago, many people would probably have been terrified by the sun’s misshapen appearance in such a partial eclipse, thinking that the sun was diseased, under attack or foretelling woe to its watchers. However, in today’s high-tech world, this type of sun blockage has little scientific value and can in no way match the excitement generated by a total solar eclipse.
| Location | Time zone | Sunrise | Max. eclipse | Magnitude | Eclipse ends |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chicago, IL | CDT | 5:18 a.m. | 5:18 a.m.* | 35.6% | 5:39 a.m. |
| Minneapolis, MN | CDT | 5:29 a.m. | 5:29 a.m.* | 30.4% | 5:46 a.m. |
| New York, NY | EDT | 5:24 a.m. | 5:32 a.m. | 79.7% | 6:30 a.m. |
| Boston, MA | EDT | 5:07 a.m. | 5:33 a.m. | 80.0% | 6:32 a.m. |
| Montreal, PQ | EDT | 5:05 a.m. | 5:39 a.m. | 85.0% | 6:38 a.m. |
| Quebec City, PQ | EDT | 4:51 a.m. | 5:39 a.m. | 85.0% | 6:40 a.m. |
| Toronto, ON | EDT | 5:36 a.m. | 5:40 a.m. | 86.2% | 6:38 a.m. |
| Washington, DC | EDT | 5:45 a.m. | 5:45 a.m.* | 68.6% | 6:29 a.m. |
| Cleveland, OH | EDT | 5:55 a.m. | 5:55 a.m.* | 66.6% | 6:35 a.m. |
| Charleston, SC | EDT | 6:14 a.m. | 6:14 a.m.* | 11.7% | 6:21 a.m. |
| Indianapolis, IN | EDT | 6:19 a.m. | 6:19 a.m.* | 29.4% | 6:35 a.m. |
| Knoxville, TN | EDT | 6:21 a.m. | 6:21 a.m.* | 12.3% | 6:28 a.m. |
| Yarmouth, NS | ADT | 5:42 a.m. | 6:33 a.m. | 78.6% | 7:33 a.m. |
