Astronomy fans and sky gazers were treated to a spectacular "ring of fire" or the annular solar eclipse for three minutes on Thursday, Sep. 1. It had emblazoned the skies over south and central Africa.
The eclipse happens when the Moon covers the Sun's centre, leaving the Sun's visible outer edges to form a "ring of fire" or annulus around the Moon.
It was visible over the southern Indian Ocean, but the best view of the "ring of fire" was visible from southern Africa and northern Madagascar. Several sky gazers travelled towards Tanzania and Reunion, an island east of Madagascar, to get the direct view of the celestial event.
Residents and sky gazers, wearing protective glasses, took photos of the eclipse and uploaded it on social media.
"I wanted to see it because even my daughters will be too old to watch the next one in 200 years," Jeremy Grondin, who watched the event with his two young children in the south-west of France's Indian Ocean island of Reunion, told the Guardian.
The rest of the world witnessed the eclipse via live streaming links provided by Slooh Community Observatory. Slooh aired the event live from southern Africa.
Here are the photos of solar eclipse 2016:
