France and Germany were next in line after Britain. Then comes Hungary. The Romanian capital of Bucharest is the only European capital directly in its path. Nature is turned upside down for the rare celestial event. Temperatures drop by as much as 20 degrees Fahrenheit.
Birds stop singing, dogs howl and badgers come out of lairs.
U.S. and British warplanes were patrolling the skies of northern Iraq as normal on Wednesday, despite a solar eclipse watched by astronomers on mountain campsites in the area, said a spokesman for the allied force. Eclipse watchers in Cornwall brave bad weather to catch a glimpse of the phenomenon Iraq said the Western jets attacked a fourth-century Christian monastery in northern Iraq on Tuesday, killing and wounding a number of people at a camp set up for the astronomers to watch the eclipse. Iraqi authorities had asked the United Nations to request the Western allies to put the flights, dubbed Operation Northern Watch, on hold for a day so that Iraqis and scientists from Egypt, Libya and Syria could watch the eclipse in safety. Pope John Paul, a keen astral watcher, will have a bird's eye view of the eclipse as he flies by helicopter from the Vatican to his summer residence south of Rome. Palestinians in self-ruled Gaza mostly heeded health ministry advice to stay home and avoid the eclipse's dangers.