On Monday, October 3rd 2005 there will be an annular eclipse of the sun over Europe and Africa, with a partial phase visible from Ross-on-Wye. This is the last annular eclipse visible from anywhere in Europe until 26th January 2028. In Ross, the eclipse will only be partial but, unlike the one I photographed below, at dawn on 31st May, two years ago, it occurs at a time of day which will be observable by most people.

In Ross-on-Wye, the eclipse should begin at around 8:50 am British Summer Time. Mid eclipse will occur at around 10:00 am and it will end at approximately 11:15 am

An annular eclipse is similar to a total eclipse, except the moon is further away from the earth in its orbit, so the moon's disc does not appear large enough to fully obscure the sun, as it does during a total.

The path of annularity crosses Ibiza and Algeria. Algiers, will see 3 minutes and 47 seconds of annularity and the main path of the eclipse will track south east through the African countries of Tunisia, Libya, Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia before ending in the Indian Ocean.

Never look directly at an eclipse or even using sun glasses or smoked glass. You will damage your eyes permanently! The best way to view, if you have not got a pair of eclipse viewing glasses available is to project an image of the sun onto a piece of white paper using binoculars. Do not look at the sun through the binoculars!!! Point the large end at the sun and the eye piece end at the paper and move the binoculars around until you can see the sun's disc projected.

Here's hoping for clear skies on the day!

From the very beginning I have received comments on how easy Wyenot.com is to navigate and this is very pleasing to hear because that is exactly how I intended it to be. Those who have been visiting the web site regularly from its beginning back in 2000 know most of what is available for viewing, and of course the site map has always helped those who have more recently discovered the web site.

With over 2,000 pages of information about Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire, the Wye Valley and Forest of Dean however, built up over the past five years, there are pages on Wyenot.com which I have forgotten about myself. With this in mind, I decided to try and think of a way of making these pages easy to discover by newer viewers and easier to find by everybody. This is where the new, traditional book style 'A to Z Index' comes in.

I made the new 'A to Z Index' available this week. Compiling it has been difficult, to put it politely and it is by no means perfect, or complete. As I rediscover forgotten things on the web site, I will add them to the index and will try to remember to update it with all new items added.

The index does not include links to every single item in Wyenot News as they are already covered in the back issues and it would take me years of work to sort them out and re index. Important town events covered in 'Wyenot News' are indexed however, and visitors looking up those should discover the smaller items whilst browsing. Links to many of the 'Wyenot News' items listed do not take you to the exact page - just the correct issue. Again, this was a time factor thing and gradually I will try to correct it.

Whether you are an old regular or a new visitor to Wyenot.com, I hope you find this new navigation tool useful.

Please click here to try it out.

A.J.W.