SYDNEY — Skygazers across the Australian Outback were among the lucky few to witness a solar eclipse on Friday as the moon glided between Earth and the sun, blocking everything but a dazzling ring of light.

The celestial spectacle, known as a "ring of fire" eclipse, was the second solar eclipse visible from northern Australia in six months. In November, a total solar eclipse plunged the country's northeast into darkness, delighting astronomers and tourists who flocked to the region from across the globe to witness it.

Friday's eclipse, also called an annular solar eclipse, was not considered as scientifically important or dramatic as November's, because the moon is too far from Earth — and therefore appears too small — to black out the sun completely. Unlike a total solar eclipse, which essentially turns day into night, an annular eclipse just dims the sunlight.

"A total eclipse is overall far more spectacular, far more emotional," said Andrew Jacob, an astronomer at Sydney Observatory. Still, he said, Friday's eclipse provided "a nice ring of sunlight in the sky."

At remote outposts across Australia, scientists and spectators watched as the eclipse cast an approximately 200-kilometer-wide (120-mile-wide) shadow at dawn over Western Australia. The moon's shadow moved east through the Northern Territory and the top of Queensland state, then across Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and the tiny island nation of Kiribati. The show ended at sunset over a largely uninhabited area of the Pacific Ocean.

Nicole Hollenbeck

The annular solar eclipse blazes in the morning sky south of Newman, Australia. The "second sun" is a lens effect. For more about Nicole Hollenbeck's photo, check SpaceWeather.com.

Joerg Schoppmeyer

A filtered view of the annular solar eclipse highlights the "ring of fire" effect. Click on the picture for more eclipse views from photographer Joerg Schoppmeyer.

Geoff Sims

Photographer Geoff Sims captured this view of the annular solar eclipse from a ridge west of Plutonic Gold Mine, about 120 miles (200 kilometers) from Newman, Australia. "The horizon was perfectly clear - what an amazing sight seeing the squished sun in annular eclipse," Sims wrote in his Facebook posting. He's working on a collaborative imaging and time-lapse program with colleague Colin Legg. Click on the image to see more of Sims' work at https://www.facebook.com/BeyondBeneath

David Gray / Reuters

Women wear protective glasses as they gaze at Friday's solar eclipse from Sydney's Observatory Hill.

David Gray / Reuters

A telescope set up on Sydney's Observatory hill projects an image of the partial solar eclipse onto a screen.

The eclipse lasted between three and six minutes, depending on its location, and blacked out around 95 percent of the sun at its peak. A partial eclipse was visible to people in other parts of Australia, Indonesia, New Zealand and the South Pacific.

Astronomer Jay Pasachoff, who traveled from Williams College in Massachusetts to Australia to view his 57th solar eclipse, drove to a remote hill in the Outback about 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of the Northern Territory town of Tennant Creek, where he and around 100 others enjoyed one of the best and longest views of the eclipse in Australia.

Amateur astronomers clicked away on cameras, and local high-school students measured the drop in temperature as the moon moved in front of the sun and blocked out much of the light. The moment, Pasachoff said, was magical.

"The color of the light changes in an eerie fashion, and you sense that something very strange and weird and wonderful is going on," Pasachoff said.

More about the solar eclipse:

• The science behind the 'ring of fire'
• Two solar eclipses in six months!
• Flash interactive: What causes a solar eclipse

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Submitted by Robin Taylor / UGC

Earth casts a sharp shadow on the moon's disk during the height of Monday's partial lunar eclipse, as seen from Wichita, Kan.

The full moon put on a show today from one side of the Pacific to the other, in the form of a partial lunar eclipse.

Unlike last month's annular solar eclipse, half of the world could see Earth's shadow fall upon the moon's disk at one time. The viewing zone took in most of the Americas, the Pacific, Australia and East Asia. At the time of maximum eclipse, 37 percent of the moon was covered with darkness.

Even if you were in the eclipse zone, you had to be looking up at the right time, under the right conditions. For North Americans, the right time was before sunrise. For example, the picture you see above was taken at around 5:40 a.m. CT by Robin Taylor, and sent in via our FirstPerson sharing website. Taylor also lucked out with the weather: The wispy clouds add an air of mystique without spoiling the view.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the ocean, skywatchers in Indonesia, Japan and other Asian countries turned their eyes and their telescopes to the skies after sunset.

This lunar eclipse took place just two weeks after the solar eclipse, which also gave an advantage to Pacific Rim observers. That's no accident: Lunar eclipses occur when Earth gets exactly between the moon and the sun, and solar eclipses occur when the moon gets exactly between the sun and Earth. Over the past couple of weeks, the tilt of the moon's orbit was favorably aligned with respect to Earth for both configurations.

As a reminder of the annular "Ring of Fire" eclipse, I'm including a shot contributed this week by Dario Infini of Carmel, Ind. Infini's photograph shows a woman standing on a high sand dune in Albuquerque, N.M., at the height of the solar eclipse. "The circumstances of clear weather, relative accessibility and a relatively unobstructed view near the horizon made this a very rare set of photos, potentially once in a lifetime," Infini writes.

And speaking of once-in-a-lifetime opportunities, Tuesday offers the last chance until the year 2117 to witness the transit of Venus across the sun's disk. It's worth seeing — but make sure you see it safely. Your options for precautions range from solar-filter glasses to pinhole projectors to webcast views. Here's a guide to safe observing, and here's a guide to photographing the transit. If you get some great pictures, will you please share them with us? You can use the FirstPerson tool to pass them along. 

Oscar Siagian / AFP - Getty Images

A skywatcher peers through a telescope to look at a partial lunar eclipse in Jakarta on Monday evening. The first partial lunar eclipse of the year provided dramatic scenes across Indonesia and other parts of Asia and the Pacific, with a clear moon visible to many as the event unfolded.

AP

A partial lunar eclipse is seen on Monday through the Sapporo TV Tower in Sapporo, Japan.

Submitted by Dario Infini / UGC

Dario Infini took this picture of a woman standing on a high sand dune in Albuquerque, N.M., framed by the "ring of fire" created by May 20's annular solar eclipse. A solar filter gives a golden tone to the scene.

More views of eclipses:

• May 2012: Your views of the annular solar eclipse
• Panoramic view of the eclipse from a California peak
• Relive the 'Ring of Fire' solar eclipse of May 20
• December 2011: Your views of the total lunar eclipse

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Copyright John Harrison Photography

Photographer John Harrison captured this view of the Dec. 10 total solar eclipse above San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge. "I went out at sunrise this morning not sure what to expect," he wrote. "What an awesome sight! The blue skies at sunrise with the red moon overhead were just a sight to watch. It was worth the 3 a.m. start to our fun shooting." See more of his portfolio at the John Harrison Photography website.

Millions of people witnessed today's total lunar eclipse, and that means there were plenty of cameras snapping in the darkness. We've put together this sampling from the photos submitted via FirstPerson, Facebook, Google+ and Twitter.

This was the last total solar eclipse until 2014, but there'll be plenty of other sky phenomena between now and then — including an unusual "diamond ring" annular solar eclipse next May, a Venus transit in June, a total solar eclipse in November, and meteor showers galore. Please keep us in mind whenever you've got a cool picture of the cosmos, and thanks for passing along slick eclipse pics like these:

Humza Mehbub

Humza Mehbub sent this composite image of the lunar eclipse from Lahore, Pakistan. The multiple exposures show Earth's shadow creeping across the moon's disk from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. in Lahore, when the eclipse hit its peak.

Anthony Citrano

Anthony Citrano, a fashion photographer from Venice, Calif., captured this pre-dawn view of the eclipse as seen over Malibu and the Santa Monica Mountains. "Before going to bed at 1 a.m. ... I considered setting my alarm to get up and shoot the eclipse," Citrano wrote. "I was feeling quite tired - and lazily decided not to set the alarm. But my subconscious mind was determined, because I nevertheless awoke four hours later. I got out of bed, looked out the window, and it was just starting to go into shadow. I shot a few hand-held shots from my home in Venice - and then hopped in the car and drove the mile or two to the Santa Monica bluffs. This shot is the result. ... Running out the door I didn't notice I was traveling with a nearly-dead battery - and no spares - and this lens is really hard on power. I ran out of juice just after this shot, so I'm glad I got it." To learn more about Citrano's day job, check out his portfolio at Zigzag Lens.

Daniel Fischer

German science writer Daniel Fischer captured this picture of the total eclipse during a trip to Ranihet, India. "Took a lot of pictures with different settings, as a guide for the next total lunar eclipse - which, unfortunately, is now 3 years away." For more, check out Fischer's Twitpic gallery and his Cosmic Mirror website.

Michael Zeiler

Cartographer Michael Zeiler sent in this composite photo that captures the last partial stages of the lunar eclipse as seen from Los Alamos, N.M. "Total lunar eclipse began two minutes after sunrise where I live," Zeiler wrote. "I tried to capture a photograph of the selenelion, but missed it by a couple of minutes." Zeiler's website is the aptly named Eclipse-Maps.com, and he has produced charts for the May annular solar eclipse as well as the November total solar eclipse. "My map of the transit of Venus is on page 70 of the January 2012 Sky and Telescope," he says.

Jim Werle

The lunar eclipse competes with the bright lights of Las Vegas in this photo from Jim Werle.

JoAnne and Michael Schnyder

JoAnne and Michael Schnyder sent this picture of the partial eclipse from Cape Verde, Ariz. This was the view at 6:45 a.m. MT, at a stage when Earth's shadow hadn't yet completely covered the moon's disk but you could already make out the reddish eclipse glow.

Adam Gray

For some observers in the western U.S., the eclipse provided the seemingly impossible opportunity to catch the sunrise and the moonset simultaneously - a phenomenon known as "selenelion." Adam Gray sent in these two photos that show the brightening sunrise sky in the east and the darkening moon in the west. "The marine layer started to roll in right at about the time of totality," Gray wrote.

This eclipse preview story provides further explanation of the "impossible" selenelion phenomenon (alternate spelling is "selenehelion"). While we're on the subject of selenelion, toy inventor Mark Burginger sent in a couple of photos from the parking lot at Tetherow Golf Course in Bend, Ore., that shows the eastward sunrise view as well as the westward lunar eclipse view.

Follow the links below to see eclipse photos from:

• C.J. Cassarino of Livermore, Calif.
• Dale Cunningham of Corona, Calif.
• Barbara Hewitt of San Marcos, Calif.
• Joe Leonard of Taos, N.M.
• Fran Pepoon of Roseville, Calif.
• Anthony Wells from Hawaii

Thanks again to these photographers as well as others who submitted eclipse pics. For still more about today's event and other eclipses, check out these links:

• PhotoBlog gallery of lunar and solar eclipses
• Interactive: What causes a lunar eclipse?
• Nine cool facts about the lunar eclipse
• Why an eclipse paints the moon red

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Julie Jacobson / AP

A lunar eclipse is seen framed within Turret Arch at Arches National Park near Moab, Utah, on Dec. 10. This total lunar eclipse, which occurs when Earth gets directly between the moon and the sun, will be the last of its kind until April 2014.

Did you catch today's total lunar eclipse? Take a good, long look at these pictures of the dusky dark moon: It'll be more than two years before we see a fresh batch.

The best seats in the house for today's spectacular were in Asia. A lunar eclipse occurs when the moon is positioned just right in its orbit to pass through Earth's shadow. Today, that occurred when Asia and the Pacific were facing right at the moon. Other regions of the world, including some areas of Europe and the western U.S. and Canada, could catch at least part of the show before sunrise or after sunset. Here's a sampling of the snapshots:

Ringo H.W. Chiu / AP

This photo combination shows the different stages of the moon during Saturday's lunar eclipse as seen from the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles.

Ringo H.W. Chiu / AP

A lunar eclipse and the Hollywood sign are seen from the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles.

Tim Wimborne / Reuters

The earth's shadow falls on the moon as it undergoes a total lunar eclipse above the Sydney Harbour Bridge in Australia on Dec. 11 local time.

Yoshikazu Tsuno / AFP - Getty Images

A partial lunar eclipse is seen near the Tokyo Tower on Dec. 10. People across Japan were in the prime viewing zone for the total eclipse.

Koji Sasahara / AP

The moon turns red as the earth passes between the moon and the sun during the total lunar eclipse, as seen from Tokyo.

I watched the onset of the eclipse's total phase from our deck, east of Seattle, but the clouds closed in partway through the 51-minute window of totality. Did you see the moon's red glow? Leave a comment below, and if you captured a great picture, point us to it and we just might add it to the roundup.

So if it's a total eclipse, why didn't the moon go totally dark? The lunar surface takes on that dusky appearance during a total eclipse because some sunlight is refracted around Earth by our planet's atmosphere. It's as if the glow of a thousand sunsets is directed toward the moon. This report explains the physics that's involved.

Although there'll be some partial eclipses of the moon in 2012 and 2013, our next dose of lunar eclipse totality won't come until April 15, 2014. But next November, a total solar eclipse will be visible from a narrow track that stretches across northern Australia and the South Pacific. Stay tuned for that one ... and in the meantime, check out these links to eclipse pictures and lore:

• PhotoBlog gallery of lunar and solar eclipses
• Interactive: What causes a lunar eclipse?
• Nine cool facts about the lunar eclipse
• Why an eclipse paints the moon red

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Jay Pasachoff / Williams College

The moon's disk takes a bite out of the sun during Friday's partial solar eclipse, as seen from Invercargill in New Zealand. The last of 2011's four solar eclipses was visible only from an area in southern latitudes taking in New Zealand, Tasmania, South Africa and Antarctica.

Today was "Black Friday" for some folks in southern climes, and not because it's the big shopping day after Thanksgiving: A partial solar eclipse made the sky just a little bit darker in areas of New Zealand, Tasmania, South Africa and Antarctica.

Some observers spotted only a slight grazing of the sun, while others — such as Williams College astronomer Jay Pasachoff and his eclipse-chasing colleagues — could see the moon take an appreciable bite out of the sun's disk in the skies over Invercargill in southern New Zealand. "After an in-and-out, off-and-on-rain day, we are very pleased," Pasachoff said in a report from Sky & Telescope's Kelly Beatty.

Pasachoff passed along another perspective on the eclipse, taken from the seventh-floor offices of the New Zealand Department of Conservation in Invercargill. The hand in the picture belongs to Steve Butler, who works for the government agency.

Jay Pasachoff / Williams College

The partially eclipsed sun can be seen through a filter held in front of a seventh-floor window in Invercargill. Appropriate safety protection, such as specially designed solar filters, should always be used when gazing at the sun, even during a partial eclipse.

"I gave him one of my solar filters to hold so I could take that photo (Nikon D200)," Pasachoff told me in an email. "He is the regional project manager and was able to grant us access to that site where we were shielded from the wind ... aside from the fierce wind that came through the opened window."

Antarctica's researchers had what were potentially the best seats in the house, with up to 90 percent of the sun's diameter blacked out. Unfortunately, it doesn't sound as if the weather was all that cooperative down at the bottom of the world.

Today's event was the last of four partial solar eclipses during 2011, but there's one more eclipse to close out the year. A total lunar eclipse will be visible from half the world on Dec. 10-11, with best viewing available from Australia, Asia and the Pacific. North Americans will see the beginning stages of the eclipse, while Europeans and Africans will catch the ending.

Next year brings a new crop of solar spectacles, including an annular "ring" eclipse visible from Asia, the Pacific and the western U.S. on May 20, and a total solar eclipse visible from Australia and the South Pacific on Nov. 13. 

More eclipse treats:

• Solar eclipse dims skies in Europe, Middle East
• Marvel at the 'Midnight Sun' eclipse
• The sun gets double-crossed
• Eclipse views turn moon into a star 

Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.