Watch for Sunday's strange solar eclipse on East Coast — and online

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/watch-sundays-strange-solar-eclipse-east-coast-online-8C11509922

Alan Boyle, Science Editor NBC News
Nov. 1, 2013

Got eclipse glasses? If you're on the East Coast of the U.S., you might want to get 'em — so you can try catching a glimpse of a solar eclipse at sunrise on Sunday.

And no matter where you are, you'll want to be watching the Web as well — so you can catch the show when it's totally at its best.

Sunday's eclipse is a strange one, known as a hybrid. Millions of observers on the eastern edge of the America, in southern Europe and nearly all of Africa have the potential to see a partial eclipse.

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Only 5 percent of all eclipses are annular-total hybrids. The most recent one occurred back in 2005. All solar eclipses involve the moon getting right in front of the sun and casting its shadow on our planet. But here's why Sunday's hybrid eclipse is special: During the course of the day, the moon's distance from Earth changes just enough to make the transition from leaving some of the sun exposed, to covering up the entire disk.

For detailed information about the eclipse's track, check out Eclipse-maps.com, NASA's eclipse website and this interactive eclipse map from Xavier Jubier. [see link above for these links]

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The JavaScript Solar Eclipse Explorer can compute the local circumstances for every solar eclipse visible from a city for any century from -1499 to 3000 (1500 BCE to 3000 CE).

http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/JSEX/JSEX-index.html