Your guide to being an Eclipse expert. By Charlotte Marlow =D. && Bryony Acton (:

Occur when the Moon comes between the Earth and the Sun, as it travels west to east Next eclipse will happen in 2008 Width of effect on Earth is at most 270km (167 miles), and record duration is seven-and- a-half minutes Previous eclipse happened in 2003, but was only visible from part of Antarctica Will come to an end in about 600 million years when the Moon will be too far away from Earth to cover the Sun

A belief persists in India that all cooked food left uneaten during an eclipse should be given away, as it will have become impure. A superstition with rather more common sense behind it holds that anyone holding a knife during an eclipse will cut themselves. One has it that if a pregnant woman goes out during an eclipse, her baby will be born blind or with a cleft lip. Another says that a pregnant woman should not touch her belly during a lunar eclipse, or she will cause the baby to be born with a birthmark An eclipse in Nigeria in 2001 was seen by Muslim youths as anger from god for sinful activities. And the ancient belief that an eclipse presaged war and devastation is still preached by some mystics in India.

The diamond ring effect is a feature of total solar eclipses. Just before the sun disappears or just after it emerges from behind the moon, the rugged lunar limb topography allows beads of sunlight to shine through. This effect is called Baily's beads, in honour of Francis Baily who first noted the phenomenon in 1836.

Looking directly at the photosphere of the Sun (the bright disk of the Sun itself), even for just a few seconds, can cause permanent damage to the retina of the eye, because of the intense visible and invisible radiation that the photosphere emits. This damage can result in permanent impairment of vision, up to and including blindness. Viewing the Sun during partial and annular eclipses (and during total eclipses outside the brief period of totality) requires special eye protection, or indirect viewing methods. The Sun's disk can be viewed using appropriate filtration to block the harmful part of the Sun's radiation. Sunglasses are not safe, since they do not block the harmful and invisible infrared radiation which causes retinal damage. Only properly designed and certified solar filters should ever be used for direct viewing of the Sun's disk.