Baily's beads

Baily's beads: see eclipse.

---

Baily's beads

Arc of bright spots seen during a total eclipse of the Sun, named for Francis Baily (1774–1844), the English astronomer who first called attention to them. Just before the Moon's disk completely covers the Sun, the narrow crescent of sunlight may be broken in several places by mountains and valleys on the edge of the Moon's disk; the resulting spots resemble a string of beads. The “diamond-ring effect” occurs when the very last rays of the Sun to be obscured look like a bright diamond on the solar corona.

---

Baily's beads [′bāl‚ēz ¦bēdz]

(astronomy)

Bright points of sunlight appearing around the edge of the moon just before and after the central phase of a total solar eclipse.