PARIS — Crowds across Europe gazed skyward on Friday to witness a solar eclipse, one where the moon came between the earth and the sun and its shadow blocked the sun in its entirety at some viewing points.
As officials warned of possible power failures and encouraged people to view the phenomenon only through special glasses, excitement grew for the rare celestial event. But clouds covered the sky over much of Northern Europe, including the Faroe Islands, one of the few places where the total eclipse was supposed to be visible. Only some spots, like Berlin, were lucky enough to have a fairly clear view of the spectacle.
Solar eclipses are unusual marvels, occurring intermittently and visible only in certain parts of the planet. In continental Europe, the next total solar eclipse will not occur until 2026.
This eclipse was especially anticipated, as it was part of a trifecta of celestial events. Friday was the first day of spring, and it was also expected to provide a supermoon, which happens when the moon orbits at its closest proximity to the earth. It can appear as much as 12 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter than an average full moon.
Scientists were thrilled at the prospect of the spectacle, but many people, not least sky gazers in some parts of cloudy Europe, were disappointed that the event did not live up to expectations.
Danny Brandon from Essex, England, wrote on Twitter that a sense of proportion was needed: “I’m all for a #SolarEclipse but the way people are talking in London I’m expecting Bruce Willis to appear on the tube and save the world.”
Energy providers in Germany, in particular, where nearly 6 percent of energy supplies came from solar sources last year, had been worried that the sudden obstruction of the sun and its re-emergence about two minutes later would jolt the power grid. But there were no immediate reports of widespread problems, and initial reports indicated that grid operators had been able to cope with the loss of power from the sun during the eclipse.
Experts warned watchers to be careful because looking directly at the sun can cause serious damage to the eyes, even if a viewer is wearing dark sunglasses. Many, nevertheless, headed outdoors around midmorning to look upward or capture the moment in a digital photograph.
Edward Bloomer, an astronomer at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England, said the event was significant, as it was relatively rare that a huge portion of the planet could see at least a partial eclipse, including most of Europe, and parts of North Africa and the Middle East.
He said he had been up since 7 a.m., looking through protective viewing glasses. “For some eclipses, you have to be in the middle of the ocean to see it, or it will only cast a shadow on the east of Russia,” he said. “This one was great, as so many people on the earth could see it.”
He added that it was rare for the earth, the sun and the moon to perfectly line up, creating a so-called syzygy effect.
As for the disappointed skeptics, including some in Britain, he said, “It’s always safest to manage expectations with things like this, especially in Britain where you can’t control the weather.”
In Berlin, Helga Sittl and her husband joined dozens of others at a wide traffic circle against the Victory Column in the city center, the site of a major speech by Barack Obama before he was elected president.
“We were in Berlin for a party tonight, but this is a wonderful way to start the celebration,” Mrs. Sittl said.
Marcelo Sanchez, an engineer from Chile who was in Berlin and skipped his German class to watch the eclipse, said he had been waiting for years to experience one live.
“Today is special because it is sunny; you can see it well,” Mr. Sanchez said. He recalled how an eclipse was used to prove part of Einstein’s relativity theory, on how light could be bent.
Yet even in Berlin there was a degree of disappointment.
“In 1999, it went perfectly still,” Imgard Roberts recalled about an earlier eclipse. She had come out with her 6-year-old daughter, Emily, to try to catch the sight from Tiergarten Park in Berlin. “The birds stopped singing, the streetlights even started to come on. This time, it barely went dark.”
The eclipse was total, meaning the sun was fully blocked by the moon, but only in remote parts of the Northern Hemisphere. A live video feed from Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean just north of the European mainland, hosted by scientists on the website of the Slooh Observatory showed the moon’s shadow slowly inching across a bright sun.
When the sun was completely covered, only its aura glowing at the rim of the moon, the scientists were ecstatic.
“The corona is flowering outward, and it’s an incredible, incredible sight to see,” said Eric Edelman, a Slooh producer. “It’s just so stunning.”
Paul Cox, a field astronomer with Slooh, gushed, “And it’s absolutely beautiful.”
But in Britain and elsewhere in Europe, where a deep fog and thick clouds covered London, Paris and the surrounding areas, the reaction was far less enthusiastic.
“Send us your most soul-sappingly underwhelming #eclipse2015 pictures,” The Guardian said on its Twitter account. “We’ll stick the most average in a gallery.” And people did, posting photos of gray skies, with no sun or moon in sight.
At the Défense business district near Paris, people hurried through the chilly morning to reach their offices, barely glancing at the foggy sky. The few who had hoped to catch a glimpse of the eclipse stared glumly above.
Pierre, 38, who declined to give his last name, said he had come down from his office in one of the skyscrapers with his camera. “My colleagues had warned me that it would be a flop,” he said, contrasting the experience with fond memories of the 1999 eclipse, which he watched with his family.
“This time, I was worried because I hadn’t found the special solar eclipse glasses, and in the end, it seems that I saved a few euros,” he said.
He said he was not passionate about solar eclipses. “But it’s the kind of event when people can come together and remember we are all earthlings,” he added.
Jean-Paul Arnal, 51, who runs a photography shop, brought his camera and his daughter Roxane, 19, out to see the sights. Equipped with a variety of special lenses to immortalize the event, he said he was disappointed. “I am passionate about astronomy,” Mr. Arnal said. “But we’re not off to a great start.”
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