A large number of people had gathered at the PWD Guest House campus, Kanyakumari, on Friday, to witness the annular eclipse, a rare celestial event. Well ahead of the spectacle, seven telescopes and sun spotters were readily positioned. Solar filters were fitted in to the special Celestron telescope, which has an aperture of 8 inches, for safe-viewing. The Sun’s image was also projected on screens with the help of telescopes.
The new moon shot into prominence at mid-afternoon as it cast its silhouette on Earth. Its shadow slowly moved across the solar disk up to 3.05 p.m. at Kanyakumari. Astronomers and researchers rejoiced as the events or contacts of the transit took place precisely as predicted.
The first contact of the moon with the sun occurred at 11.06 a.m. It occurred in the moon’s ascending node. The eastern edge of the satellite first touched the sun’s rim (western limb) externally. In two hours, by 1:10 p.m., the entire disk of the moon was seen inside the Sun. That is, the western edge of the sun and the western edge of the moon were in total contact. This marked the beginning of the annularity.
Those who had gathered to witness the celestial spectacle crowded around telescopes, projectors and stood ready with the solar filters to see the total annularity phase. Over the next few minutes, the moon slowly proceeded to cover the sun.
By 1:16 p.m. the shadow of the moon moved over to cover the sun’s disk in such a way that a ‘Ring of Fire’ was seen surrounding the dark moon. As the Sun appeared like a ‘diamond bangle,’ double images were seen on the ground. “We are able to see two refracted images of objects due to light being refracted by the sun and moon,” said V. Ramakrishnan, HOD, Physics, Madurai Kamaraj University.
The annularity ended with the third contact at 1:22 p.m., that is, when the moon moved to touch the north-eastern limb of the sun giving it a partially eclipsed effect. The grand finale (contact IV) occurred at 3:06 p.m. when the moon moved away from the sun.
In preparation for the event, a three-day workshop was held by Vigyan Prasar, Department of Science & Technology, Government of India and Tamil Nadu Science & Technology Centre.
“We focussed on eclipses, types of eclipses, how they occur and their effect on different living things on Earth to the participants. About 750 people, including students and teachers, participated,” said Arvind C. Ranade, Principal Scientific Officer, Vigyan Prasar.
All of them were jointly involved in carrying out a number of observations during the eclipse. They measured time of contacts, behavioural change of animals and birds during maximum phase of eclipse and temperature changes in the atmosphere.
