A NUMBER of Scots were left disappointed as cloudy skies meant much of the country missed out on viewing the solar eclipse.
While many across the globe caught a glimpse of the display, unfavourable weather conditions meant potentially visible locations across the UK were shrouded by overcast skies.
An eclipse of the Sun occurs when the Moon moves directly between the Sun and the Earth, blocking some or all of the Sun’s rays from reaching the planet.
Although clear skies in certain areas of the country, including the Highlands and the Orkney Islands, meant some caught a glimpse, most of Scotland appears to have missed out.
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Dr Robert Massey, deputy executive director at the Royal Astronomical Society, said: “I’m wondering whether or not anybody in the UK actually saw it.
“There seem to be people saying it’s cloudy in Cornwall, cloudy in west Wales – there’s an outside chance people might be seeing it from a youth hostel in the Isle of Harris.”
One Twitter user posted a video on social media with the caption “partial eclipse viewing from the west coast of Scotland” showing grey skies.
Another joked about the “moment of maximum eclipse” in the west of Scotland by again sharing an image of a foggy scene covering the sky.
Simon Partridge, a forecaster at the Met Office, said it was likely that most of England and Wales wouldn’t have been able to see the eclipse anyway.
He added that outside the north west of Scotland, the eclipse would have been “very, very small and probably not actually noticeable” even if clouds had not obscured the view.
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