CAMPECHE, Mexico (Reuters) – Thousands of people across the Americas gazed at the heavens on Saturday to witness a rare phenomenon known as an annular solar eclipse, when the moon passes in front of the sun, momentarily producing the appearance of a "ring of fire" in the sky.
"It's one of those things you can't miss," said Oscar Lopez, 26, who travelled from Mexico City to the southern Mexican city of Campeche to see the eclipse. "It's amazing. We're really lucky as human beings to be able to experience these things."
US space agency NASA said the eclipse was following a path from the US Pacific Northwest over California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, crossing over parts of Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Colombia and Brazil before ending at sunset in the Atlantic Ocean.
Lopez and his family were among hundreds of spectators wearing sunglasses who gathered to watch the moon slowly glide across the face of the morning sun in Campeche, a picturesque colonial-era city on the western edge of the Yucatan peninsula.
An annular solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between Earth and the sun at a time when the moon is at or close to its farthest point from our planet. It does not completely obscure the face of the sun, unlike in a total solar eclipse.
Instead it creates the image of a brilliant ring on the outlines of the sun surrounding the dark disc of the moon.
Isaac Solis, 26, a video editor in Mexico, chose the eclipse to propose to his 27-year-old girlfriend Alondra de Jesus Aguilar as they looked up at the sun in Campeche.
"I wasn't expecting it at all," Aguilar said. "I feel really happy. And really sure I want to spend my life with him."
AFP adds: A crowd of people wearing protective eyewear gathered in Albuquerque, New Mexico, one of many across the western United States watching as the Moon passed between the Sun and Earth at its furthest point from our planet.
Since it is so distant, it did not cover the Sun completely, creating a "ring of fire" effect that brought cheers from the crowd in Albuquerque.
"It's majestic. We're in awe," said one viewer in Albuquerque, Shannon Cozad.
In the course of just a few hours the most striking "path of the annularity" was crossing a handful of major cities, including Eugene, Oregon and San Antonio, Texas, with partial eclipse phases lasting an hour or two before and after.
"It's kind of like a black hole," said Mubaraq Sokunbi, an excited eight-year-old who was at a hot air balloon festival in Albuquerque with his family. "The moon covers the sun and then there's a ring around it."
At any given location, the eclipse will be visible from between 30 seconds and five minutes – but people were urged to take safety precautions and use solar viewing glasses, and never regular sunglasses, to preserve their vision.
"Do NOT look at the Sun through a camera lens, telescope, binoculars, or any other optical device while wearing eclipse glasses or using a handheld solar viewer -- the concentrated solar rays will burn through the filter and cause serious eye injury," NASA said.