How Manitobans can catch a glimpse of Thursday's solar eclipse

Winnipeg -

Manitobans will have to wake up early tomorrow if they want to catch a glimpse of the solar eclipse.

According to Scott Young, an astronomer with the Manitoba Museum Planetarium, the solar eclipse will be visible in Manitoba right around sunrise.

He added that at this point, the moon would have already moved in front of the sun and moved past it, so it will be covering about half the sun.

“You have to be up tomorrow morning at sunrise, 5:20 [a.m.] or so,” he said.

“If you’re in northern Manitoba, you have a little bit of a better chance, simply because they’re closer to the Land of the Midnight Sun, so the sun is up really, really early, that makes it a bit easier to see.”

Young said the solar eclipse will only last about 30 minutes in southern Manitoba.

“So between 5:20 [a.m.] and just before 6 o’clock, and you’ll need a really, really clear horizon without any trees or buildings in the way, so you kind of need to pick out your spot today,” he said.

STAYING SAFE

Young noted that people need some sort of protection for their eyes to look at the eclipse,

“You need to use something like the eclipse glasses they had back for the 2017 eclipse if you’ve still got some of those kicking around,” he said.

“There are also some ways that you can observe the sun indirectly by making, say, a pinhole camera or using a pair of binoculars that will allow you to project an image of the sun, not looking through the binoculars. Basically, those ways will all protect your eyes.”

More information on how to protect your eyes during the eclipse can be found online.

WHAT WILL YOU SEE?

Young explained that if conditions are clear, Manitobans will be able to see a crescent sun rising.

“It will look sort of like the crescent moon, except it will be the sun rising with all the beautiful sunrise colours – the reds and oranges and things like that,” he said.

“As the sun rises higher in the sky, the moon will slowly uncover the sun and by 6 o’clock, everything will be back to normal as if nothing happened.”

He noted this type of event occurs whenever the moon, sun, and Earth line up as they’re going around.

“The moon goes around the Earth and the Earth goes around the sun and the three of those can line up in different configurations,” Young said.

“So occasionally we get either a solar eclipse, when the moon moves in front of the sun and blocks it out, or we can get the reverse to that, a lunar eclipse, where the moon goes into the Earth’s shadow.”

- With files from CTV’s Nicole Dube.