Total Solar Eclipse of 2023 April 20
 from Western Australia

The point of greatest eclipse (totality phase during 1 min 16 sec) lies in the Timor Sea. The weather conditions aren’t generally that good over most of the area crossed by the eclipse path, nevertheless the Exmouth Peninsula in Western Australia stands out with clear skies. This eclipse will have a nice and strong Baily’s beads display (view the simulations below). Another option would be to observe this total solar eclipse from an aircraft near the transition point from annular to total in a similar way I did in November 2013 with the very challenging eclipse flight from Bermuda as the expert navigator. This could be achieved with a 7-hour return flight from La Réunion island. The same could be achieved in the Pacific Ocean at the other end of the track from the Marshall Islands.

This hybrid solar eclipse starts as an annular and soon after becomes total, when using the usual eclipse classification based on a smooth lunar limb profile, and then goes back to annular near the end of its track. However when taking the lunar limb profile into account this does a lot of damage to the eclipse classification, so much so that the eclipse could never be seen to be annular, not even briefly.

You can use this solar eclipse calculator to compute the local circumstances of the eclipse, and the solar eclipse timer notifies the beginning of the various events. A time exposure calculator is there to help you choose your camera settings.