How to Take a Solar Eclipse Road Trip

Only those in the Southern Hemisphere get a glimpse

(AP) - A total eclipse of the sun occurs tomorrow, but don't be so quick to take out your special viewing glasses. Unlike recent solar eclipses, this year's complete blotting out of the sun will be visible only in a narrow slice of the Southern Hemisphere. The spectacle begins at sunrise some 1,200 miles northeast of New Zealand. The moon's shadow will sweep across the South Pacific, darkening skies over the Cook Islands, Easter Island, and parts of southern Chile and Argentina. More»

Disneyland Paris is just too obvious

(NEWSER) - Had enough of all those lists of places to see before you die? Then check out 101 Places Not to See Before You Die, which focuses on “overhyped tourist sites" and the like. A sampling, courtesy of USA Today :

• Ibiza: The Spanish party isle is a great place—"for the world’s horniest youth.”
• Disneyland Paris: Need we say more?

Experts tie Odysseus' return to Ithaca with real eclipse in 1178

(NEWSER) - Homer's Odyssey is 2,700 years old, and the events it describes happened centuries earlier. But two scientists claim in a new paper that they've traced one line in the epic poem—a possible reference to an eclipse—to a real astronomical event. Classicists might take issue, writes the New York Times, but the astronomers say that Odysseus' return to Ithaca coincided with a solar eclipse on April 16, 1178 BC. More»

She says she was blinded by glare when she hit pedestrians

(NEWSER) - A San Francisco driver blamed the moon moving in front of the sun for preventing her from spotting the pedestrians moving in front of her vehicle. The 26-year-old woman told cops that she had looked at the "ring of fire" annular eclipse and had been temporarily blinded by its glare before running into a mother and daughter crossing the street, reports the San Francisco Chronicle . The 10-year-old girl suffered a broken arm, while her mother received bumps and bruises. The driver has not been arrested or ticketed, but the eclipse excuse "probably won’t fly," says a police spokesman. More»

Annular solar eclipse visible from western US

(NEWSER) - For the first time this century, the sun will partially disappear behind the moon over the US tonight, leaving a “ring of fire” around the moon in what is known as an annular eclipse. The solar event will be best viewed from 33 national parks that will experience the full effect, the Christian Science Monitor notes, but more than 100 other parks lay in the path of the eclipse and guests will be able to view at least a partial show. But sorry, East Coast: In the US, the Eastern Seaboard will be completely unable to see the event, which starts at 8:24pm—after sunset. More»