Solar eclipse

Children view the solar eclipse through special protective glasses in Cape Town, South Africa. A solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between the sun and Earth so that the sun is wholly or partially obscured. Monday’s partial eclipse was visible in the southern third of Africa, southeastern India, southeast Asia and the western part of Australia. (Schalk van Zuydam / Associated Press)

Sept. 16, 2014 11:02 AM PT

A partial eclipse was to visible in parts of Africa, southeastern India, Southeast Asia and the western part of Australia.

The moon’s shadow gives a crescent form to the sun’s disc as it sets in Manila bay, Philippines. (Aaron Favila / Associated Press)

One of the best places to see the eclipse was in Indonesia, where children in Anyer Beach viewed it through a sheet of X-ray film to protect their eyes. (Achmad Ibrahim / Associated Press)

The partially obscured sun provides the backdrop for a statue in Mundul Kiri province, about 300 miles northeast of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. (Heng Sinith / Associated Press)

A boy in Bangalore, India, gets help using protective glasses to view the eclipse. (Jagadeesh NV / EPA)

Most of the sun and its color is eaten by the moon’s shadow as seen from Bandung in the West Java province of Indonesia. The process of the eclipse took nearly four hours. (Colenak / EPA)

A sequence of photos shows various phases of the eclipse as seen from Jakarta, Indonesia, which had one of the best views of the solar event. (Bay Ismoyo / AFP/Getty Images)