New Delhi, May 17: An Annular eclipse of the Sun will occur on May 21, 2012, Ministry of Earth Science said on Wednesday. In India, ending of the partial phase of the eclipse will be visible for a very short-duration from the northeast part after the sunrise. 

People in Chinese coast and south of Japan will be able to see the annular eclipse in the morning and it will cross the North Pacific Ocean and end in the western United States. 

Depending on where people are in the eclipse's path, some may be able to witness an annular eclipse in which the moon blocks out all but a ring of the sun's light.

Others will see the sun as a crescent, for a period of around four to five minutes.

The partial phase of the eclipse will begin at 2 h26 m IST and end at 8h 19m IST. Whereas, the annular phase will begin at 3 h 39 m IST  and end at 7h 7m IST.  The Moon's penumbral shadow produces a partial eclipse visible from a much larger region covering East Asia, North Pacific Ocean, North America and Greenland. The instant of greatest eclipse occurs at 5 h 23 m IST when the eclipse magnitude reaches 0.945 with duration of annularity 5 m 42 s in a region of North Pacific Ocean. 

In India cities where partial phase will be visible for few minutes are Agartala where it will end at 4h 48.4m, Aizawl 4h 48.0m, Coochbehar 4h 51.1m, Darjeeling 4h  52.1m, Dibrugarh 4h 50.9m, Gangtok 4h 52.2m, Guwahati 4h 50.5m, Imphal 4h 48.5m, Itanagar 4h 50.9m, Kohima 4h 49.3m, Shillong 4h 49.8m, Sibsagar 4h 50.3m, Silchar 4h 48.8m, Siliguri 4h 51.6m. 

An annular eclipse occurs when the Sun and Moon are exactly in line, but the apparent size of the Moon is smaller than that of the Sun. Hence the Sun appears as a very bright ring (annulus), surrounding the outline of the Moon.

A partial eclipse occurs when the Sun and Moon are not exactly in line and the Moon only partially obscures the Sun. This phenomenon can usually be seen from a large part of the Earth outside of the track of an annular or total eclipse.