January 26, 2009--The dark disk of the moon creeps across the setting sun during the first solar eclipse of 2009, as seen on Monday from Manila Bay in the Philippines.

People viewing from the southern Indian Ocean were among the few to see the full annular eclipse, so called because at its peak the eclipse is surrounded by an annulus, or ring, of fiery light.

Because the moon's orbit is elliptical, its distance from Earth--and thus its apparent size--varies over time. Annular eclipses happen when the moon looks too small to completely cover the sun, an event that occurs about 66 times a century.

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