'Ring of fire' eclipse wows across Asia

Skywatchers from Saudi Arabia and Oman to India 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 visible from the Middle East across southern India and Southeast Asia before ending over the northern Pacific.

Hundreds of amateur astronomers, photographers and set up by Singapore's harbour for what some described as a "once in a lifetime" event.

Eclipse stops play

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.

But in New Delhi, cloud and pollution blocked the view, although only a partial eclipse would have been visible that far north.

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 v ery excited to see the peak though now it is cloudy," said Chandra Ayu Dewi, 39, who arrived at 7:00 am 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.