- guardian.co.uk, Wednesday August 11 1999 01.23 BST
On a hill near Truro, astronomers angle telescopes towards the Atlantic, waiting for 11.11am when the wall of night will sweep over Cornwall, speeding at 1,522mph over the globe until vanishing into sunset over the Bay of Bengal.
For two minutes, 23 seconds, a moon will blot out a sun 400 times its size and 400 times further away from earth, uniting astronomers and party-goers in a community of wonder.
There is a less than 30% chance of good visibility in south-east England, due to a band of cloud and rain. Eclipse-watchers in west and south Devon - on the edge of totality - have the best chance of seeing something through patchy cloud.
More than 100,000 boats are moored off Cornwall's coast, ready to head into the channel, which has the best chance of clear skies.
Two Devon fuel stations have run out of petrol as more than 4,000 cars an hour pour onto the M5. Traffic was nose to tail in Torbay, south Devon.
