FRESNO, Calif. (KMPH) -
It's a sight never seen this century in the western sky. It's called an annular eclipse when the sun and moon are exactly in line and the sun appears as a very bright ring.
Many sun and moon observers flocked to the Discovery center in Southeast Fresno to use some sophisticated hardware to get a good eyes view. Justin Vogel loved it. "It was awesome. I've never seen anything like that in my whole life."
Minute by minute the moon's shadow on the sun got bigger and bigger. But instructor Garret Wimer warned us that watching from the Discovery Center wouldn't provide us with a perfect ring of fire. "If you are far enough north, up around Chico, Northern California, Northern Nevada, on through well it ends down in Texas somewhere."
Wimer says an eclipse can be seen somewhere on earth within an 18 year window. The last annular eclipse occurred on May 10th, 1994. As our camera kept rolling we saw the moon's shadow creating a lazy "c" shape. It continued to decrease in size but we never witnessed the perfect ring.
People like Valerie Kelly were still in awe. "I was impressed. It was a sight to see definitely. Something you didn't get to see very often."
At best the view from Fresno was 90 percent partial eclipse. A total eclipse of the sun will take place in 2017. Unfortunately Oregon will be the best place to see it happen.
