In Lebanon, the Internal Security Forces’ Directorate General issued a statement whereby it warned citizens from looking at the sun directly.
“Looking at the sun during a solar eclipse causes eye damage that could lead to permanent blindness,” the ISF explained.
This as a solar eclipse swept across the Atlantic Ocean with the moon blocking out the sun for a few thousand sky gazers on remote islands with millions more in Europe, Africa and Asia getting a partial celestial show.
The moon's shadow fell south of Greenland at 0741 GMT and sped eastwards towards the Faroe Islands and the Norwegian Arctic islands of Svalbard, where hotels have been sold out for years to fans of the rare total eclipse.
"I've seen aurora, I've seen some volcano eruptions, but the total eclipse is still the most spectacular thing I've ever seen. And each one is unique," said Fred Espenak, a retired NASA astrophysicist in Torshavn, capital of the Faroe Islands.
With clear skies, stars and planets appeared visible in daytime and a ring of fire - the corona - appeared around the sun. In one famous experiment, a 1919 eclipse gave evidence for Einstein's theory of relativity by showing that the sun's mass bent light from distant stars.