Solar eclipse: European stargazers share sights of cosmic event

Halfway around the globe while most Americans slept, sky gazers watched the daytime sky turn black during a total solar eclipse that cast a long lunar shadow Friday morning.

The moon completely blocked out the sun, plunging people on the Faroe Islands and the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard into darkness for a few minutes. People across Europe looked to the skies to catch a glimpse of the moon blotting out the sun.

Eclipse enthusiasts flew to remote parts of the North Atlantic for front-row seats to view the short-lived cosmic event, but those who missed it can still enjoy a bit of the wonder now from what was recorded and shared via social media.

The European Space Agency’s Proba-2 minisatellite shot the brief but beautiful moment as the moon passed in front of the sun.

The Faroe Islands — about halfway between Iceland and Norway — were heavily shrouded by the eclipse’s darkness.

But a Hungarian tourist in the Faroe Islands’ capital, Torshavn, told Reuters that the wind, rain and clouds were too intense to see anything.

Britain got to appreciate the eclipse as well. Before it started, an optician in Kingston-upon-Thames, England, warned people to exercise caution.

Authorities warned tourists who flocked to the Svalbard islands to watch out for polar bears and frostbite, but neither stopped viewers from breaking into applause during the big moment.

Meantime, photographers for the U.K.’s Chester Zoo shared haunting images of a few of their ring-tailed lemurs admiring the event.

The U.K.’s chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne, took to Twitter to gush about his experience witnessing the eclipse from aboard a train.

Several people snapped images of the eclipse from the island of Anglesey, off the northwest coast of Wales.

Staff at the Tapton School in Sheffield, England, escorted their students outside onto the blacktop to feast their eyes on the skies.

Students in the Champagne-Ardenne region of France also stepped outside for the experience.

Clouds covered the sky over Charleville-Mézières in the Ardennes of northern France, but the eclipse was still visible through the haze.

Still, not everyone got worked up about the phenomenon. Whether because of their location or the weather, some people simply were not impressed by the results.