Solar Eclipse. /Courtesy of Fred Espenak

A solar eclipse (日蝕) is a phenomenon where the Earth, Moon, and Sun align in a straight line, causing the Moon’s shadow to block the Sun. On April 20, 2023, the crescent shadow rapidly crossed the southern hemisphere of the Earth. In a narrow path that mostly missed land, the silhouette of the Moon formed a hybrid eclipse.

A hybrid eclipse, where both total and annular eclipses appear simultaneously, occurs rarely. Depending on the observation location, the Sun can be completely obscured in a total eclipse or appear as a ring-shaped annular eclipse.

Observers of this hybrid eclipse witnessed the total eclipse from a vessel anchored near the centerline of the eclipse path off the coast of Western Australia. Renowned eclipse chaser Fred Espenak captured images of the Sun’s outer atmosphere, the corona, extending into space.

During the 62 seconds when the Sun was completely obscured, 11 images were captured with different exposures ranging from 1/2000 of a second to 1/2 of a second, recording the delicate structure and brightness range of the corona, which is not visible to the naked eye.