{"id":165481,"date":"2026-08-12T18:08:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T18:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/165481\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T18:08:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T18:08:12","slug":"excitement-building-for-once-in-a-lifetime-eclipse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/165481\/","title":{"rendered":"Excitement building for ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ eclipse"},"content":{"rendered":"

Excitement is building in County Armagh at Northern Ireland’s only planetarium ahead of a major celestial event.<\/p>\n

Dozens of people, both young and old, have gathered at the Armagh Observatory to witness the largest solar eclipse visible from the island until September 2090.<\/p>\n

More than 90% of the sun will be obscured across Ireland<\/a> during the early evening on Wednesday \u2013 at its peak, viewers in Belfast can expect the sun to be covered by the moon by 93.05%.<\/p>\n

At the observatory, keen observers have gathered for a viewing party on the hill, where everyone can get the best view for the once-in-a-generation event.<\/p>\n

‘This one wasn’t around last time’<\/p>\n

Ed Ronayne and his daughter Genevieve from County Tipperary said they are “very excited” to see the eclipse from the observatory.<\/p>\n

“It’ll be really cool,” Genevieve told BBC News NI.<\/p>\n

“And just to say: ‘I’ve been around for a solar eclipse.'”<\/p>\n

Ed said he missed the last solar eclipse in 1999 due to travelling abroad, so he is “really looking forward” to seeing this one.<\/p>\n

“And sure this little one wasn’t even around so it’s her first chance to see it,” Ed said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Ed Ronayne and his daughter Genevieve are from County Tipperary in the Republic of Ireland [BBC]<\/p>\n

Sharon Walsh and her daughter Mia have travelled up from Dublin for the event.<\/p>\n

“We were looking for somewhere to the see the eclipse and just thought it’d be nice to mark such an event,” Sharon said.<\/p>\n

“There won’t be another one until 2090 and I’ll probably be dead by then,” she joked.<\/p>\n

“So it’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing.”<\/p>\n

Mia said she’s “really excited to see what it’s like” because she has never seen one before.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Heather Alexander said the eclipse is “so significant” [BBC]<\/p>\n

Heather Alexander is a senior education officer at the Armagh Observatory and said it is “crazy to think that a lot of the people coming to see the eclipse weren’t even alive back in 1999” – when the last solar eclipse occurred.<\/p>\n

“I remember watching that on tv myself and getting solar filter glasses through the newspapers and everything,” she said.<\/p>\n

“It’s so significant because we will not see another eclipse like this again on the island of Ireland until 2090 which is pretty insane,” she continued.<\/p>\n

“The excitement for this eclipse has been next level, I actually haven’t seen anything like it before and I’ve worked here for eleven years.<\/p>\n

“For lack of a better phrase it is astronomical.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Aisling O’Hare is a PhD Researcher in Solar Physics [BBC]<\/p>\n

In Belfast, a few hundred people are at Queens University to watch the partial solar eclipse.<\/p>\n

About 1500 people have registered interest at the university.<\/p>\n

Aisling O’Hare, PhD Researcher in Solar Physics, said: “If you can get a clear minute, get your glasses on to take a look to see if moon has moved across the sun.”<\/p>\n

There are clouds currently covering Belfast but, Aisling O’Hare said “hopefully the clouds give us a bit of break and people can even catch a glimpse of the partial eclipse”.<\/p>\n

And as if by magic – the sun just peaked through the clouds.<\/p>\n

\"Four<\/p>\n

The Martin family are excited at QUB [BBC]<\/p>\n

The Martin family told BBC News NI: “This is a once in a lifetime event. We had to come down to see this. The children are very excited to see this event today. It’s very cool”.<\/p>\n

How should I watch the eclipse?<\/p>\n

Astronomers have warned people never to look directly at the sun during a partial eclipse.<\/p>\n

Even when most of the star is covered, the visible section remains bright enough to cause damage to the eye.<\/p>\n

“The problem is that our retinas don’t have pain receptors, so you won’t know that you’re damaging your eyes” Ne\u017ei\u010d added.<\/p>\n

Instead, viewers should use certified eclipse glasses for naked eye viewing, but not while looking through binoculars or a telescope.<\/p>\n

Further information can be found here.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

County Kerry Coast will see most of the sun blocked out [BBC]<\/p>\n

People can also watch safely by projecting an image of the sun onto a white card using a telescope, a cereal box pinhole viewer, or even a kitchen colander.<\/p>\n

Astronomers have also advised against pointing an unfiltered smartphone or digital camera directly at the sun because the intense light could damage the camera sensor.<\/p>\n

“The only thing you can look at with the naked eye is a total solar eclipse and there hasn’t been one of those on Irish soil since 1724, and there won’t be another one visible until September 2090” added Astronomy Ireland’s David Moore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Excitement is building in County Armagh at Northern Ireland’s only planetarium ahead of a major celestial event. Dozens…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":165482,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[53194,33675,17,53200,53197,53196,53199,53198,2807,53195,51051],"class_list":["post-165481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-armagh-observatory","tag-bbc-news-ni","tag-canada","tag-celestial-event","tag-county-armagh","tag-county-tipperary","tag-ed-ronayne","tag-heather-alexander","tag-ireland","tag-sharon-walsh","tag-solar-eclipse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}