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It is overcast here will probably miss it. (((

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A COMPLETE LIST of viewings times and areas can be fournd here:
http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/O ... 005-2.html

Quote:


Local Circumstances for Hybrid Solar Eclipse of 2005 April 08

Geographic Eclipse Maximum Eclipse Sun Sun Ecl. Ecl.
Location Begins Eclipse Ends Alt Az Mag. Obs.
h:m h:m h:m o o
UNITED STATES
Atlanta, GA 21:36 22:18 22:59 21 265 0.210 0.112
Austin, TX 21:17 22:10 22:59 34 257 0.265 0.157
Baton Rouge, LA 21:22 22:15 23:04 28 262 0.294 0.183
Birmingham, AL 21:34 22:17 22:59 23 263 0.212 0.113
Charleston, WV 21:54 22:18 22:42 18 265 0.069 0.021
Columbia, SC 21:38 22:20 22:59 18 267 0.206 0.108
Dallas, TX 21:26 22:11 22:53 33 257 0.194 0.099
El Paso, TX 21:20 22:02 22:42 43 249 0.149 0.068
Houston, TX 21:17 22:11 23:02 32 260 0.296 0.184
Jackson, MS 21:28 22:15 23:00 27 262 0.240 0.136

Jacksonville, FL 21:28 22:20 23:07 19 268 0.322 0.208
Little Rock, AR 21:35 22:14 22:51 28 259 0.155 0.072
Louisville, KY 21:53 22:17 22:41 22 262 0.065 0.020
Memphis, TN 21:38 22:15 22:52 26 260 0.151 0.069
Miami, FL 21:20 22:20 23:14 17 270 0.467 0.354
Montgomery, AL 21:31 22:18 23:02 23 264 0.249 0.143
Nashville, TN 21:43 22:17 22:50 23 262 0.129 0.054
New Orleans, LA 21:21 22:15 23:05 27 263 0.314 0.201
Norfolk, VA 21:49 22:20 22:50 14 269 0.117 0.047
Oklahoma City, OK 21:37 22:11 22:43 33 254 0.106 0.041

Orlando, FL 21:25 22:20 23:10 18 269 0.378 0.263
Philadelphia, PA 22:07 22:19 22:32 13 269 0.019 0.003
Phoenix, AZ 21:35 21:57 22:19 47 241 0.040 0.010
Raleigh, NC 21:45 22:20 22:54 16 268 0.151 0.069
Richmond, VA 21:52 22:20 22:47 15 268 0.095 0.035
St. Louis, MO 21:55 22:15 22:35 26 259 0.041 0.010
St. Petersburg, FL 21:22 22:19 23:11 20 268 0.401 0.286
San Antonio, TX 21:14 22:09 23:00 35 257 0.287 0.176
Tallahassee, FL 21:27 22:19 23:07 21 266 0.315 0.201
Tampa, FL 21:23 22:19 23:11 19 268 0.396 0.281

Washington, DC



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An article about the Hybrid eclipse and info ....

http://www.space.com/spacewatch/050401_ ... lipse.html


In North America

Parts of North America will see this as a partial solar eclipse. However, there will also be locations that will see nothing of this eclipse.

Eclipse Terms


Partial eclipse: The Moon covers only part of the Sun.

Total eclipse: The Moon covers the entire disk of the Sun along a narrow path across the Earth.

Annular eclipse: The Moon is too far from Earth to completely cover the Sun. A thin ring of the Sun's disk surrounds the Moon.




If you have an atlas of the United States, draw a line starting from a point roughly from Imperial Beach, California and extend it northeast to Quincy, Illinois, and then east to Perth Amboy, New Jersey. All places above (or north) of this line will not have any view of the eclipse.

Meanwhile, those localities below (or south) of the line will be able to see at least a part of this eclipse near sunset, although for those places in the immediate vicinity of this line, the Moon’s "bite" out of the lower edge of the Sun will be tantalizingly small.

For example, while the eclipse will not be visible from New York City, just 85 miles to the southwest, at Philadelphia, the edge of the Moon’s dark silhouette will appear to encroach upon the Sun at 6:07 p.m. ET. Twelve minutes later, maximum eclipse will be attained, with the Moon only obscuring about 2 percent of the Sun’s diameter (or just three-tenths of one percent of the total area of the Sun’s disk). The "eclipse" -- if we can charitably call it that – will come to an end at 6:32 p.m. ET.

As one heads farther south, the eclipse will last longer and this slight dent will evolve into a more noticeable scallop out of the Sun’s left rim.

From Washington, D.C., the eclipse will last 41 minutes, with just over 5 percent of the Sun’s diameter covered at 6:19 p.m. ET. Continuing southward, from Raleigh, North Carolina, the eclipse will last 69 minutes from start to finish, the Moon covering a maximum of 15 percent of the Sun’s diameter at 6:20 p.m. ET.

Along the Gulf Coast, the eclipse will last about 2½ hours; prospective observers will see anywhere from about 30 to 40 percent coverage, while for those in the Florida Keys, it will be a nearly three hour affair, with the Moon appearing to obscure about half of the Sun’s disk.

From San Juan, Puerto Rico, nearly 68 percent of the Sun’s diameter will be eclipsed, maximum eclipse coming at 6:22 p.m. AST. Eighteen minutes later, the Sun will drop down below the west-northwest horizon, making for a most unusual sunset!

For full prediction details for many cities are available from NASA.

In addition, NASA astronomer Fred Espenak has a website dedicated to the upcoming April 8 solar eclipse which contains maps, tables and additional prediction details.

Caution: Don't Look at the Sun

To look at the Sun without proper eye protection is dangerous.

Unlike a total eclipse of the Sun, concentrating its excitement into a few fleeting minutes, a partial eclipse can be watched in a relaxed manner from wherever one happens to be. Providing proper protection is employed, bservations can be made with or without telescopes or binoculars. However, looking at the Sun is harmful to your eyes at anytime, partial eclipse or no. Most people are under the mistaken impression that when a solar eclipse is in progress that there is something especially insidious about the Sun’s light.

But the true danger that an eclipse poses is simply that it may induce people to stare at the Sun, something they wouldn’t normally do. The result can be "eclipse blindness," a serious eye injury that has been recognized at least since the early 1900’s. About half of the reported victims of eclipse blindness recover their precious quality of eyesight after a few days or weeks. The other half carries a permanent blurry or blind spot at the center of their vision for the rest of their lives.

Public warnings by news media have vastly reduced solar eye injuries at eclipses in the last few decades. After the solar eclipse that crossed the United States on March 7, 1970, no fewer than 245 cases of retinal injury were reported. Of these people, 55 percent suffered permanent impairment of vision. In contrast, after the solar eclipse of May 30, 1984, Sky & Telescope magazine was able to locate only three cases of eclipse blindness in the entire United States. During any direct observation of the eclipse, your eye or must be protected by dense filters from the intense light and heat of the focused solar rays.

By far, the safest way to view a solar eclipse is to construct a "pinhole camera." A pinhole or small opening is used to form an image of the Sun on a screen placed about three feet behind the opening. Binoculars or a small telescope mounted on a tripod can also be used to project a magnified image of the Sun onto a white card. Just be sure not to look through the binoculars or telescope when they are pointed toward the Sun!

A variation on the pinhole theme is the "pinhole mirror." Cover a pocket-mirror with a piece of paper that has a ¼-inch hole punched in it. Open a Sun-facing window and place the covered mirror on the sunlit sill so it reflects a disk of light onto the far wall inside. The disk of light is an image of the Sun’s face. The farther away from the wall is the better; the image will be only one inch across for every 9 feet from the mirror. Modeling clay works well to hold the mirror in place. Experiment with different-sized holes in the paper. Again, a large hole makes the image bright, but fuzzy, and a small one makes it dim but sharp. Darken the room as much as possible. Be sure to try this out beforehand to make sure the mirror’s optical quality is good enough to project a clean, round image. Of course, don’t let anyone look at the Sun in the mirror.

Acceptable filters for unaided visual solar observations include aluminized Mylar. Some astronomy dealers carry Mylar filter material specially designed for solar observing. Also acceptable is shade 14 arc-welder’s glass, available for just a few of dollars at welding supply shops. It also used to be widely advertised that two layers of fully exposed and developed black-and-white negative film was safe. This is still true but only if the film contains an emulsion of silver particles. But beware: some black-and-white films now use black dye, which is no longer safe. It is always a good idea to test your filters and/or observing techniques before eclipse day.

Unacceptable filters include sunglasses, color film negatives, black-and-white film that contains no silver, photographic neutral-density filters, and polarizing filters. Although these materials have very low visible-light transmittance levels, they transmit an unacceptably high level of near-infrared radiation that can cause a thermal retinal burn. The fact that the Sun appears dim, or that you feel no discomfort when looking at the Sun through the filter, is no guarantee that your eyes are safe.

What's ahead

The next solar eclipse will occur Oct. 3 this year. It will be an annular solar eclipse with a maximum duration of just over 4½ minutes that will sweep across the Iberian Peninsula and stretches across the African Continent. Madrid, Spain finds itself directly in the center of the annular eclipse track and will see the mid-morning Sun turn into a blazing ring of fire for over four minutes.

But the next solar eclipse visible over a large swath of North America won't come until May 20, 2012, when the path of an annular solar eclipse passes across portions of eight southwestern states.

Cool. If the clouds clear a little,
we may be able to see it here in the Mid-Atlantic.

(At first I thought this was a thread about a new car. "See it at a dealer near you.")

The local weather guesser said a few mins ago it was going on now until around 6:30 PM or so here around Jacksonville, Florida.....

Well it is overcast here so, I guess I am NOT going to see it.

I wish better luck and good viewing for everyone else!

hey man in all seriousness.. what's a HYBRID one ?

It is easier to quote them ( so that way I don't muck up the definition of it.)
This seems to explain it best, I made the definition in bold and left the techie info in so the techies would understand it.

From the page:
http://www.space.com/spacewatch/050408_ ... lipse.html

Shadowy details

On the average, the length of the Moon’s shadow at New Moon is 232,100 miles (373,530 kilometers), and the distance to the nearest point of the Earth’s surface 234,900 miles (378,030 kilometers).

This means that when the Moon passes directly in front of the Sun, its shadow will usually miss the Earth by some 2,800 miles (4,500 kilometers) and the eclipse will merely be annular, with a dazzling ring of sunlight still visible around the Moon’s silhouette.

Of course we all know that total eclipses do occur, because the New Moon’s distance can vary between 217,730 miles (350,400 kilometers) and 247,930 miles (399,000 kilometers) from the Earth’s surface, on account of the Moon’s elliptical orbit.

As it turns out, the April 8 eclipse is one of those unusual hybrids where the eclipse is total over only a part of its path and annular throughout the rest. Near and at the ends of the path, the distance to the Moon is too great (owing to the curvature of the Earth) for its dark cone of shadow (called the umbra) to touch the Earth’s surface. It’s only near the middle of the eclipse track that the tip of the umbra barely scrapes the Earth, changing the character of the eclipse from annular into a total. Then, as the track approaches the Central American coast, the umbra moves off the Earth’s surface and the eclipse switches back to annular.

Of all solar eclipses, about 35 percent are partial; 32 percent annular; 28 percent total; but only 5 percent are hybrids.