PEOPLE will be looking to the skies tomorrow morning (Friday), in anticipation of the partial eclipse that is due to take place — and Callington College students will be among them.

The students will be working on a project with Callington Space Centre to observe the eclipse, take pictures and undertake light measuring as well as other research.

The partial eclipse is due to start at 8.25am with mid eclipse at 9.25am and last contact at 10.41am.

Resident astronomer at the space centre and college Clive Purchase said: 'Weather permitting, we will have various groups of students working with us throughout the morning looking through telescopes and hopefully taking pictures, light measuring, doing work on the sun and looking to see of there are any effects on nature as well. In this part of the world there is only a total eclipse once every 700 years, but it happens once a year somewhere in the world.

'This will only be a partial eclipse but it is the biggest partial eclipse since 1999, so there will be some darkness.

'We teach space as part of the curriculum and send students to NASA. They are enthusiastic about space and hopefully the work we do encourages them to think about going into space related careers.'

An eclipse is when the moon passes in front of the sun, casting darkness on the earth.

Tomorrow's eclipse is due to be between 80% and 90% coverage of the sun.

You must never view the sun directly with the naked eye and never use binoculars. Using special eclipse viewing glasses is recommended or construct a pinhold camera which projects an image of the sun onto a blank piece of paper.