Don't expect much work to be done on Monday morning.

Schools and offices are likely to empty as their occupants choose to stand outside and marvel at a partial eclipse as the moon moves in front of the sun.

This rare occurence it has not been seen since in the UK since the total eclipse of 1999 will see around 60 per cent of the sun disappear behind the moon from roughly 9am to 11am. According to astronomers, you should be able to see it from anywhere in the borough weather permitting.

Doug Daniels, an amateur astronomer from Village Road, Finchley, explained: "The eclipse will be an annular eclipse. These occur when the moon, situated at its greatest distance from the Earth, in its orbit, does not appear large enough to totally cover the sun, leaving a bright ring of light hence the name annular from the Latin for a circle."

One person who will be on the look-out for the eclipse is self-confessed eclipse chaser, Jim Brightwell. Since the age of 26 he has followed eclipses to Asia, South America and Europe. He's suffered cold snaps in Canadian winters and sunstroke in India, all for a chance to see an eclipse. He will not pick any old location though. "It has to be a good holiday too," he said. A kind of Dr Livingstone of the amateur astronomical world, he has chased' eclipses anywhere there's an adventurous destination to travel to. Of course, not everywhere is accessible, but if it is somewhere he wants to go, he will not be stopped, even it means enduring extreme conditions. "Unfortunately, it's addictive," said the retired electrical engineer from Cloister Gardens, Edgware. Describing his first eclipse in Winnipeg, Canada, he said: "It was always something I had wanted to do, and it was beautiful." The fact that his hands were frosting up' didn't put him off. "During the point of totality, temperatures dropped to around minus 23 degrees, but after that it soon warmed up again to about minus nine."

On one occasion in 1980, he wanted to head out for southern India, to a place called Ankola, not too far from Goa. He landed in Delhi, but was told a connecting flight to Goa was impossible. "You research things before you go and I knew there was a train that went to Goa," he said. "So I took a cab to the station and hopped on the train. There was no room anywhere so I have had to find a space to sit in the luggage rack." The journey took more than 24 hours.

When he arrived in Goa, he needed to get across a river. A bridge was supposed to be in place, but had not been completed. "I had to jump on this really primitive ferry it was held together with rope," he said. "It was no Ostend ferry service."

Once there, he checked into a boarding place. "People warned me not to go because of the poor sanitation," he said. When he arrived in his room, he found it was already occupied by rats. "I didn't mind them that much, but they were all over my room," he added.

He saw the eclipse and then fell very ill. "My kidneys began to fail," he said, matter-of-factly.

He saw a six-and-a-half minute total eclipse in Mexico in 1988, which went so dark he couldn't see his hand in front of his face.

In October 1995, he ventured to the north-east of Thailand during the rainy season. Monsoons poured every day, but luckily, on the day of the eclipse, there was a break in the rainfall. "It the eclipse lasted just 1.54 seconds but it was worth it," he said.

He has also dodged unpredictable guerrilla activity in Indonesia. "If you don't try to live you life a little, you'll find you've done nothing by the time you get old," said the man who has undertaken around 26 sky dives in his life, including one where the parachute failed to open. Obviously the reserve chute worked, but only when he had reached terminal velocity.

The best one of all for maximum totality, he said, was in 1955 in Bangkok and Manila. "It lasted over seven minutes the longest I've seen," he said.

For those who are keen to find out more about eclipses themselves, you do not need any specialist knowledge or equipment. "Astronomy is like reading a road map, it's not that difficult," he said. "It's like football. I can enjoy a match and the atmosphere, but like anything, I would enjoy it more if I understood it.

"You don't need specialist equipment either. I don't want to be lugging equipment around with me especially when I need to access remote areas. I would end up missing the experience because I was concentrating on using the equipment I had on me."

The best place to watch Monday's eclipse, said Mr Brightwell, is in London, should the sky be clear enough, unlike that fateful day when thousands travelled down to Cornwall in 1999 to view a total solar eclipse. "I've been to over 11 eclipses around the world the only one that was overcast was Cornwall," he said, followed by a growl of frustration. "It's so typical of the British weather. But it was good in other ways. It got dark very rapidly. The birds didn't know what hit them. They stopped flying and went very quiet. The next one won't happen in the UK until I'm long gone in 2151."

Predictably though, for Mr Brightwell, he will witness some more total eclipses in his lifetime. "There's another one happening in Turkey next March it'll last 3.5 minutes and I'll be seeing that." Following that, he lists Mongolia in August 2008 (that lasts more than six minutes) and Shanghai in June 2009.

u Never look at the sun with any optical aid, including telescopes. Only use specialist filters made for solar observations or make yourself a pinhole camera.