Would you travel across the world to see a ‘smiley face’ crescent sun appear on the horizon for a few minutes, the tips of its crescent slicing through the haze like ‘devil’s horns?’
On March 29, 2025, eclipse chasers from across North America — and a handful from beyond — will travel to southwest New Brunswick and eastern Quebec in Canada, and to northeastern Maine in the U.S. to witness 85% of the sun blocked by a new moon as the sun rises in the east.
I’ll be one of them, reporting for Space.com while attending Sky Experience II: The Rising Sun Eclipse Experience & Retreat in Saint Andrews-by-the-Sea in southwest New Brunswick, organized by Cliff Valley Astronomy. This historic and picturesque town on the Bay of Fundy is a popular tourism destination known for its whale watching, seafood restaurants (think: lobster) and golf courses.
It promises to be the centerpiece of an epic adventure. After chasing total and annular solar eclipses for decades and reporting on them most recently from a cruise ship in Western Australia and Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, South Llano River State Park in Texas and a farm in Easter Island, Chile, it’s time for a specialist sight of the sun few ever get — and I’ve never seen.
Jamie Carter
This part of Atlantic Canada will get one of the best shots at seeing a partially eclipsed sunrise, weather permitting. In Saint Andrews, New Brunswick, we’ll attempt to observe a horizontal eclipsed sunrise over Passamaquoddy Bay at 7:13 a.m. ADT, with maximum eclipse (83%) just a few minutes after at 7:18 a.m. ADT. We’ll then watch as the moon begins to depart the sun, with the partial eclipse ending at 8:13 a.m. ADT.
It will take place exactly one lunar year after April 8, 2024’s total solar eclipse seen across North America. This time, it’s a partial solar eclipse, so there will be no totality phase. The sun’s corona won’t be visible, and it will not get dark. We’ll need to use solar eclipse glasses and solar filters.
What will be visible that was not on April 8, 2024, is the prospect of solar horns appearing in the east. It’s one of the most spectacular yet lesser-known sights during a partial solar eclipse. Although it’s visible during every such event, the location requirements are so specific that it’s mostly an event that is possible to see only at sea or in very remote regions. This time, it’s visible on the east coast of North America.
What I hope to see is the illusion of two sharp, glowing “horns” peeking over the horizon. With the partial eclipse already underway at sunrise, the sun will be a crescent. This is how it is across the northeastern U.S. and eastern Canada, but only from a sunrise line stretching across the region will the crescent be aligned as a horizontal “smiley face” rather than vertically. This effect is only visible if the eclipse is already in progress when the sun is low on the horizon.
The positioning in Saint Andrews is vital because, as well as being on the sunrise line for this eclipse, it also has an ocean horizon. It’s not the only location for this rare sight. Eclipse chasers will also gather just 75 miles south at West Quoddy Point, Maine, and about 430 miles north along the St Lawrence River at Forestville in Quebec, Canada.
Since Earth’s atmosphere distorts the sun’s image when it’s close to the horizon, the horns could appear even more dramatic — but a low horizon is vital, as are clear sightlines to the sunrise in the east-northeast, which can be calculated using resources like The Photographer’s Ephemeris.
There are two other reasons to go to New Brunswick. The main is, of course, the three-day event that culminates in the eclipse, but also includes lectures from eclipse chaser and astrophotographer Alan Dyer, the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada’s Jenna Hinds and a discussion panel on First Nations experiences and tourism. It’s based in the historic (and supposedly haunted by a mysterious lady in white) Algonquin Resort, built in 1889, and, like any good eclipse event, there are sundowners planned — this one a “cosmic costume” party pub crawl around the seaside town.
Another reason for visiting New Brunswick is the dark skies. As any eclipse chaser will tell you, their hobby has a bonus few realize. By definition, all solar eclipses occur at the new moon, which means dark, moonless evening skies for a week before and a night after. If you’re going to see an eclipse, suss out the region for dark sky destinations — of which New Brunswick, population 775,000, has many.
The province currently has four certified Dark Sky Preserves and aims to surpass the number of dark sky sites in Québec. Working with organizations like Dark-Sky and the Starlight Foundation, there are exciting plans for a network of stargazing places along the Bay of Fundy coast I’ll get to experience.
At its best, eclipse chasing is about exploring the world’s remote and often overlooked areas according to a schedule set not by Instagram or glossy brochures but by where the moon’s shadow happens to fall most dramatically. That’s why I’m going to New Brunswick for this “sunrise eclipse.”
Besides, as I learned during COVID-19, there is only one important kind of eclipse — the next one.
Editor’s note: This article was made possible with travel in New Brunswick supported by Tourism New Brunswick.
