The best photos and videos of the April 8 total solar eclipse over North America

Today (April 8), a total solar eclipse drew its enormous shadow over North America, cutting a 115-mile-wide (185 kilometers), 10,000-mile-long (16,000 km) path of sudden darkness across the continent.

Starting in Mexico, the eclipse moved through 15 U.S. states and was visible to 44 million people.  If you didn’t catch the stunning spectacle in person, here are all of our favorite photos taken from eclipse watching parties throughout the Americas.

Related: Watch live! The total solar eclipse has begun over North America. 

The first totality began in Mazatlán, Mexico, where onlookers saw the moon pass in front of the solar disc. Just before totality, viewers were treated to a thin diamond-like ring of sunlight shimmering through valleys on the moon’s outer surface.

After the moon had completely blocked off the sun’s face, all that could be seen were thin purple plumes in the corona caused by solar eruptions.

(Image credit: NASA)

Meanwhile, the moon began to carve the sun into a toenail-thin slither above Fort Worth, Texas.

(Image credit: Ron Jenkins via Getty Images)

Then, just before totality, the diamond ring effect could be seen. As the final beads of sunlight zip through the valleys on the moon’s limb, the two bodies appeared in the sky as a ring studded with brilliant diamonds.

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(Image credit: Ron Jenkins via Getty Images)

No less spectacular is Mizar the dog, who awaited the total solar eclipse at the Sacre Coeur de Beauvoir Sanctuary in Sherbrook, Canada.

(Image credit: Vincent Ethier/Icon Sportswire via Alamy)

The eclipse bathed the sky in ethereal light above Torreon, Mexico.

(Image credit: Saul Perales via Getty Images.)

The moon descending upon the sun created the conditions for this moody photograph, taken through cloud cover, in Brady, Texas.

(Image credit: Brandon Bell via Getty Images)

Only the slenderest hair of sunlight remains in this photo from Eagle Pass, Texas

(Image credit: AP Photo/Eric Gayvia Alamy)

Under a blanket of clouds, the moon pockets the sun beneath the angel atop Princes’ Gates in Toronto.

(Image credit: Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press via Alamy)

The partial solar eclipse seen through cloud cover at Niagara Falls, New York.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

The moon passes in front of the sun behind the Washington Monument during the partial solar eclipse in Washington DC.

(Image credit: Chip Somodevilla via Getty Images)

The partial solar eclipse stuns among billowing clouds atop the dome of the U.S Capitol Building on Capitol Hill in Washington DC.

(Image credit: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

The sun reaches totality in Houlton, Maine, before passing over New Brunswick, then Newfoundland and out into the Atlantic ocean.

(Image credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

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