Its going to be a twilight Britain on eclipse day

solar-eclipseA spectacular eclipse will plunge Britain into twilight for two hours this month.

In a rare astronomical alignment the Moon will pass directly between the Sun and the Earth, blocking out most of the light from around 8.40am on March 20.

Northern Scotland will have the best view of the partial eclipse, where more than 98 per cent of the Sun will be covered. For London and the South East it will be around 85 per cent reported The Telegraph.

Dr Edward Bloomer, an astronomer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich, said the eclipse would be spectacular because the Moon was closer to the Earth than it had been for 18 and a half years.

“This March there is an exact alignment so nearly all of the light will be blocked out.”

The place in Britain that will see the best eclipse is the west coast of the Isle of Lewis, close to Aird Uig. There 98 per cent of the sun will be obscured at mid-eclipse at around 9.36am

Viewers on Skye and Orkney could see around 97 per cent of the Sun covered. But anyone wishing to see a total solar eclipse will have to visit the Faroes or Northern Scandinavia, where the Sun will be totally covered for around two minutes.