A PARTIAL ECLIPSE of the sun will happen today across Ireland – the biggest solar eclipse in ten years, in fact.

Partial solar eclipses happen when the moon passes in front of the sun, giving the appearance of a “bite” taken out of it.

This rare event of a deep partial solar eclipse hasn’t happened in Ireland since March 2015.

It’s set to start at around 10am, and up to 57% of the sun’s width will be covered by the moon at 11. The whole process will be over by noon.

The exact timing of the eclipse will vary by a few minutes around different parts of Ireland.

Parts of Canada will experience the deepest eclipse this time around, with up to 94% of the sun obscured.

The forecast for today is for sunny spells and cloud but even so, the sky’s set to darken considerably at the peak of the eclipse. 

“We definitely know for sure that only half the light of a normal day will light up Ireland around mid eclipse,” David Moore, Editor of Astronomy Ireland magazine, said. 

It likely goes withough saying – but it’s never advised to look directly at the sun. 

As the advice from NASA puts it: “Viewing any part of the bright sun through a camera lens, binoculars, or a telescope without a special-purpose solar filter secured over the front of the optics will instantly cause severe eye injury.”

For direct views, you should use specially EU-certified filters that block out 100% of UV and infrared light and only let through 1/100,000-th of the visible light.

Another technique to view the eclipse is the “pinhole” method with a tiny hole punched in a piece of thick paper or card (say with a sharp pencil, or a pin). This can let sunlight pass through it and an image of the sun can be picked up a few feet away on a white sheet of paper.