What Sunday’s solar eclipse might look like

The total solar eclipse on Aug. 11, 1999, prompted Muslim clergymen to call the faithful to special eclipse prayers. This picture was taken from the Iranian city of Nahavand.   (Atta Kenare / AFP/Getty Images)

Schoolchildren from St. Albert’s junior school in Mavuradona, Zimbabwe, observe the progress of a total eclipse in 2001. The eclipse first hit land in Angola, then traveled across Zambia, Zimbabwe and Madagascar.  (Rob Cooper / Associated Press)

A partial solar eclipse, projected through binoculars onto a clipboard at Griffith Observatory, was visible on May 20, 2012.   (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)

These Hungarian tourists joined about 2,000 Turkish schoolchildren gathered at an ancient Roman theater to view a solar eclipse in the Mediterranean coastal resort of Side in 2006. The total solar eclipse began at sunrise on the eastern tip of Brazil, crossed the Atlantic and made landfall in Ghana, headed north across the Sahara, the eastern Mediterranean, Turkey and the Black Sea, and on into Central Asia, where it died out at sunset in Mongolia.  (Burhan Ozbilici / Associated Press)

The 2012 partial solar eclipse didn’t prevent one person from flying a kite at Angel’s Gate Park in San Pedro.  (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)

This 1998 total eclipse was seen in parts of northern Venezuela, northern Colombia and the Caribbean. This is what it looked like above El Pico in Punto Fijo, Venezuela.  (Jose Caruci / Associated Press)

Eclipse enthusiasts gathered in Palm Cove, North Queensland, to capture Australia’s first solar eclipse in a decade, on Nov. 14, 2012.   (Ian Hitchcock / Getty Images)

Buddhist monks watch the solar eclipse near the Eiffel Tower on Aug. 11, 1999.   (Jacques Brinon / Associated Press)

The longest total solar eclipse of this century occurred on July 22, 2009, and was visible from a narrow corridor through northern India, eastern Nepal, northern Bangladesh, Bhutan, the northern tip of Myanmar, central China and the Pacific Ocean, including the Ryukyu Islands, Marshall Islands and Kiribati. This is what it looked like above Baoshi Mountain in Hangzhou city, in eastern China’s Zhejiang province.  (Wu Hong / EPA)