Solar eclipse makes Asia swoon

All of Southeast Asia was treated to at least a partial eclipse on March 9. Here in Singapore, an airplane crosses the sun's path just as a partial solar eclipse begins.

But before we go any further, we'd like to add a reminder to always - ALWAYS - wear eye protection when viewing a solar eclipse, or any other solar event. If you forget, it can cause permanent eye damage. Here, a Malaysian schoolgirl does her best to balance the need for both protective and corrective vision while viewing a partial eclipse from Kuala Lumpur.

Here's a place where the local environment might have provided "glasses" for you. Bangkok also caught a partial solar eclipse, but it was darkened through the ever-present haze in the Thai capital.

Though the sky looks black in this picture from Manila, there was in fact plenty of daylight in the Philippine capital, which was also treated to a partial eclipse on Wednesday (but not a total eclipse).

This picture from Phnom Penh shows the eclipse at its "maximum." Cambodia, as well as Myanmar, Vietnam, Thailand and Laos, saw just 50 percent of the sun covered by the moon. A "total solar eclipse" was witnessed only by those in Indonesia and in the Pacific.

Then again, saying the eclipse was visible in "Indonesia" is a bit vague. Jakarta only experienced a partial eclipse (and moderate levels of smog to boot). Unfortunately for the capital city, it was too far south of the eclipse's path. The total eclipse was visible to those in Sumatra, Borneo and Sulawesi, as well as on many other Indonesian islands.

Generally, you either have to be very, very lucky to be in the path of a total solar eclipse... or you join an "eclipse chaser" club and travel there intentionally. That's because the swath of land that experiences totality is roughly 100 miles wide (160 kilometers). The odds of it hitting you are very low. This picture was taken from a passenger ship just off Belitung Island in western Indonesia.

One very lucky island, Ternate, was directly in the path of full totality. For the locals, this is an event that will occur once in a lifetime. With that in mind, many of the island's 200,000 inhabitants made sure not to miss it...

Most made sure to bring their smartphones with them. With just four minutes of full totality, they had to be quick. Photography fans will note this picture itself is something of a solar eclipse homage to the World Press Photo of the Year 2013.

Some saw the celestial alignment as good reason to give thanks to the higher powers above. Here, Indonesian Muslims take to prayer at the Istiqal Mosque during the partial solar eclipse in Jakarta.

Now for tourists (particularly Australian ones), it would have been just about perfect if Bali, a vacation hotspot, had experienced totality. It didn't. Hordes of locals enjoyed the partial eclipse all the same, though. Parts of northern Australia also experienced a very slight eclipse.

Though a sliver of an eclipse was visible from China, astronomy fans there would say this year's was nothing compared to July 22, 2009 (above, Shanghai). That eclipse had the longest totality any of us will see in our lifetimes - 6 minutes 39 seconds (happens again in 2132) - and passed right through the heart of the world's most populous country. That made it the most viewed in human history.

Then mark your calendar. September 1: Central Africa, Indian Ocean, (partial in western Australia). February 26, 2017: Much of South America, the south Atlantic, south-western Africa. August 21, 2017: Hawaii, North America, Atlantic, western Africa. That last one will provoke a media frenzy as it will span the continental US - the first such eclipse in nearly 40 years. And do wear glasses. Always.