EARLY risers this weekend could get the chance to spot a rare solar eclipse - if they are awake enough.
Usually only milkmen and delivery roundsmen are up at 5am but a partial solar eclipse will greet those awake in the early hours of Saturday morning.
Howard Parkin, of the Astronomical Society, said: 'At sunrise the sun will rise more than 91 per c
ent eclipsed and as such rather than rise as normal the sun will appear in the north eastern horizon as a very thin crescent.
'This partial solar eclipse as seen from the Island will be at least as spectacular as the one that occurred in August 1999 but this one is quite different.
'From the Isle of Man the sun will be more eclipsed than it was in 1999.
'I have been searching the record books and computer programmes and can find no trace of an observed Manx eclipse at dawn.
'There was a partial eclipse that occurred at dawn in February 538 AD but on this occasion the sun was only 70 per cent covered by the moon and besides this it was not recorded as it was probably cloudy!'
Mr Parkin said: 'What will particularly fascinating about this eclipse is that, rather than the solar disk peeping above the horizon at sunrise, what we will see is one "horn" of the sun peeping above the horizon at 4.53am.
'The actual sunrise itself will take four minutes and during this time the sun will look quite peculiar to say the least.'
The next solar eclipse will not be visible from the Island until March 2015.
