The moon eclipsed half of the sun - but most topenders wouldn't have noticed unless they had the right gear.
There was a 50 per cent partial solar eclipse in northern Australia on Wednesday, most visible in Darwin, but with cloudy weather it was hard to see.
"We experience (eclipses) generally every year, one or two a year, but generally over oceans or land that is very remote or quite cloudy, so in theory they happen quite often but in practice they're quite tricky things to observe," astronomy enthusiast Geoff Carr told AAP.
He set up a telescope in Darwin's CBD for a closer look at the overlap.
Total eclipses are considered a major event by umbraphiles, or "eclipse freaks" who are fanatical in their interest and will travel across the world to see one, Mr Carr said.
"It's hard to put eclipses into words, it's the colour, the light, you see the sun's corona come out; it's an absolute breathtaking event," he said.
Often animals are very disoriented by a total eclipse, he said.
"(In) my first eclipse the birds went completely crazy, they went rushing back to their nests thinking night had come on, they'd been fooled," he said.
"There was this deathly silence during the eclipse, and when it had finished there was this very confused twittering."
Australia will have about five total eclipses between 2020 and 2040, "which is an unbelievable amount", Mr Carr said, and he thinks eclipse tourism will take off.
But Darwinites who missed Wednesday's partial eclipse are in for a long wait - the next total eclipse that will be visible to the top end isn't due until 2450.
