Nairobi (AFP)

Many amateur astronomers had the chance to observe Sunday in the sky of East Africa, for the summer solstice, a rare solar eclipse of the type "ring of fire".

This astronomical phenomenon, which occurs only once or twice a year, began shortly after sunrise in central Africa, crossing the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), South Sudan, northern Ethiopia, before taking the direction of Asia, to finish in the Pacific Ocean, south of the island of Guam, at 09:32 GMT.

In this type of eclipse, the Moon passes in front of the Sun, in an alignment with the Earth sufficiently perfect to hide it. But not entirely, as during a total eclipse: the Moon not being close enough to Earth, it is an annular eclipse, that is to say that at its maximum, there remains a ring around the Sun, called "ring of fire".

The curious in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, a little away from the ideal route, could only observe a partial eclipse, the clouds appearing for a few seconds at the precise moment when the Moon should have come to hide almost entirely the Sun .

Still, "it was very exciting, because I'm obsessed with eclipses. It's one of the things that got me interested in astronomy," Susan Murabana told AFP. , founder with her husband Chu of the educational program "Traveling telescope" (the itinerant telescope).

Installed with their telescope on the roof of a residential area, they observed the eclipse to dozens of people, via the Facebook and Zoom platforms.

"We normally avoid talking about the sky and the clouds, because we think it will bring us bad luck. But today, we are very lucky with the clouds and we have managed to see most of them," added Susan. .

Normally, she and her husband would probably have taken people to camp near Lake Magadi (south), where the sky is generally clearer than in Nairobi.

But due to the epidemic of new coronavirus, movement into and out of Nairobi has been banned for several weeks.

Susan said she regretted not being able to "do as usual" but be happy to have been able to "share" this experience on social networks, promising that it "will chase other" eclipses.

Only 2% of the Earth's surface was affected by the total phase of the eclipse, which makes the phenomenon exceptional.

It is however less spectacular than a total eclipse, where the place occupied by the Moon in the sky corresponds exactly to that of the Sun and causes the night, as was the case over France in 1999.

© 2020 AFP