Contribution: Thomas Baer, ORION editorial team

Here in Europe, the situation is as follows: The southern borderline to the partial solar eclipse runs from Tunisia via southern Italy, southern Bosnia, Serbia, Romania and across the Ukraine to Russia. South-east of this, for example in Greece and Turkey, you will not see anything of the solar eclipse as the moon just misses the sun's disc here. The further north-west you are within Europe, the more of the sun will be covered.

While Budapest experiences a mini solar eclipse of 2.3 %, Munich experiences 10.8 %, London 30.7 % and Reykjavik 67.7 %.

The lunar penumbra moves from the south-west to the north-east across the northern hemisphere, just touching central and western Europe. In the illustration above, we can see how quickly the moon's shadow moves; the individual intervals are only 5 minutes!

The maximum occultation is shown here as a percentage of the apparent diameter of the sun and not as the area covered by the sun. If the solar diameter is covered by 20 % (often also given as the size of the eclipse, here 0.2), i.e. one fifth, this corresponds to an area coverage of 10.5 % on the day of the eclipse. The proportional coverage of the solar disc area depends on the ratio of the apparent solar and lunar radius. Just one day after the eclipse, the moon will be close to the earth at 07:19 CET on 30 March. The moon will therefore appear slightly larger than the sun.

Over Europe, the partial solar eclipse will end between 12:15 CET (southern Spain) and 13:30 CET (northern Sweden and Norway). All areas in south-east Europe are just outside the eclipse area.

In contrast to a lunar eclipse, a solar eclipse looks slightly different depending on where it is observed and does not occur at the same time everywhere. This is easily explained geometrically: because the moon moves across the sky from west to east - approximately its full width in one hour - it casts its shadow (also from west to east) over the earth. The solar eclipse therefore begins in western Switzerland (Saint-Julien-en-Genevois, Geneva region) at 11:14:00 CET, moves eastwards and finally reaches Martina GR in the Lower Engadine at 11:25:17 CET. The following table summarises the course of the eclipse for some locations in Switzerland.

The maximum phase is reached over Switzerland between 12:02 CET (Geneva) and 12:09 CET (Lake Constance). Only between 10 % (Puschlav and Val Müstair) and slightly more than 15 % (Pruntruter Zipfel) of the solar disc area will be reached. You will be able to recognise the dip at the top right through solar eclipse glasses. Shortly before 13:00 CET, the partial solar eclipse will end in Switzerland from the south (Chiasso) to the north (Bargen SH).

We still remember the 2015 solar eclipse well, when many schools banned pupils from going out for recess during the eclipse. Due to a "warning letter" from the opticians' association, there was great concern that someone could still look into the bright sun with unprotected eyes.
However, the sun is no more dangerous during a solar eclipse than on any other day! It would hardly occur to anyone to simply stare into the blinding sun; you automatically squint your eyes.

However, with solar eclipse glasses, a special solar viewer or a filter-protected telescope, observing the sun is completely unproblematic. In addition, observatories throughout Switzerland will be open on "Astronomy Day", weather permitting. This means there will be an opportunity to observe the solar eclipse through a telescope.

What you should avoid is looking through ordinary sunglasses. It would be fatal to observe the eclipse through filterless binoculars or a telescope that is not suitable for solar observation. There is a risk of blindness within seconds!