We the group of few(me,Rahul,Satya,Mrityunjay,Ramesh and Hemant) witnessed partial solar eclipse from Chennai. We were very eager to see the event. Two of us(not me) did not slept whole night to be ready for early morning mission to Birala Planetarium.
We started around 5:15 am from IIT hostel to Planetarium with one and only one our vehicle bicycle(mercedez as we call it) with full of enthusiasm, we were surprised to see the crowd standing there in a almost halve an Km long queue, we too joined them and enjoyed for halve an hour with full fun. We were of thought that we are going to see it on LCD but planetarium people came distributing solar goggles(it was a kind of strip) so we thought that if we are going to see here without any technology why not from our Department and we were bit worried whether we will be able to see it or not as there was a very long queue. Finally after collecting solar viewer we planned to came back to iit leaving almost a Km long queue waiting for the event.
we reached at the terrace and climbed up to the top of our dept. @6:20 am, we enjoyed a real life time chance of viewing a moon obscuring sun starting from 60% to till it got over.
some guys from other dept too joined us and fortunately they were having Camera so we could capture the glimpse.Generally its not possible to capture image which you are here(below) but we made it by placing solar viewer in front of camera lens, thanx to those guys.
It is suggested that it should not be view naked eye, except when its total but honestly, I show partial eclipse naked eye though we were having solar goggles.
It was visible from within a narrow corridor that traverses half of Earth. The path of the Moon's umbral shadow begins in India and crosses through Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar and China. After leaving mainland Asia, the path crosses Japan's Ryukyu Islands and curves southeast through the Pacific Ocean where the maximum duration of totality reaches 6 min 39 s. A partial eclipse is seen within the much broader path of the Moon's penumbral shadow, which includes most of eastern Asia, Indonesia, and the Pacific Ocean.We show from chennai where is was visible around 67% .
Now let see some beliefs.In ancient times, and in some cultures today, solar eclipses have been attributed to supernatural causes. Total solar eclipses can be frightening for people who are unaware of their astronomical explanation, as the Sun seems to disappear in the middle of the day and the sky darkens in a matter of minutes.
A total eclipse occurs when the moon passes between Sun and earth and Sun is completely obscured by the Moon. The intensely bright disk of the Sun is replaced by the dark silhouette of the Moon, and the much fainter corona is visible. During any one eclipse, totality is visible only from at most a narrow track on the surface of the Earth.
