Thousands of people gathered across Portugal and Spain on Monday morning and donned protective eyeglasses to watch a rare and spectacular type of eclipse, which began to dim the Iberian peninsula shortly before 10 a.m. (0800GMT). In Madrid, entire families and groups of enthusiasts met at the city's planetarium beneath a cloudless sky to watch the eclipse directly or via giant television screen. Initially, from the Spanish capital, the eclipse could be seen taking a bite off the top of the sun. During the event, called an annular eclipse, the moon will mask the sun like a black plate, leaving a bright, fiery rim. The moon will be too small to blot out the sun completely, as in a total eclipse, because its elliptical orbit has taken it too far from the earth. However, scientists say the daylight will fade and temperatures will drop slightly as the eclipse travels along a narrow band girdling almost half the planet. The rim of fire that appears around the moon glows brighter than the corona that is seen during a total eclipse. "It's quite spectacular," said Dr. Stephen Maran, an astronomer with the American Astrological Society in Washington D.C. The eclipse's three-and-a-half-hour path first traverses Portugal and Spain.
