Rare moments (Top left to right) Just before the eclipse; A chunk of the sun disappears; The crescent appears. (Bottom left to right) The Ring of Fire; the beginning of the end; the sun makes a comeback
When we arrived in Coonoor on the afternoon of Christmas Day, the weather was spectacularly foggy. The Mango Astronomy Club had travelled to the town in the Nilgiris to view the last solar eclipse of the year. To add to our excitement, it was also an annular solar eclipse. That night, we got our cameras and telescopes ready by fitting them all with solar filters.
Luckily our fears for D-Day, December 26, were unfounded. The sky was crystal clear from as early as 4.30 am. As the sun rose over the horizon, our equipment had all been set up and we were waiting for the moment.
Annular Solar eclipse seen from Cheruvathur in Kerala.
A partial solar eclipse is seen from Quezon city, metropolitan Manila, Philippines on Thursday.
A student in Telangana's Khammam looks at the eclipse aided by dark glasses and a X ray film strip.
The bird flies across during the solar eclipse in Mumbai's Kandivali.
A view of solar eclipse in Salem in Tamil Nadu.
A glimpse of solar eclipse on the beach road captured against the backdrop of a two children clicked in multiple exposure technique in Visakhapatnam.
A boy views the solar eclipse using protective glasses at Lal Bagh Botanical Garden in Bengaluru.
The solar eclipse is observed at Pappampatti in Coimbatore on Thursday.
Solar eclipse seen through a high quality solar filter at Chennai's Periyar Science and Technology Centre on Thursday.
People watch the solar eclipse through a telescope supplied by the Pondicherry Science Forum on Beach Road in Puducherry.
In this photo taken behind reflective window glass, a partial solar eclipse is seen from Jiddah, Saudi Arabia.
People use glasses with X ray film to view the solar eclipse in Vijaywada, Andhra Pradesh.
Annular solar eclipse seen from Anna Science Centre at planetarium in Tiruchi on Thursday.
Students of Maharashtra's A.B Goregaonkar school watch eclipse from the pinhole instruments made by them.
A woman buries her daughter in neck-deep sand, along Clifton beach in Karachi, Pakistan. Many Pakistanis believe that burying people with disabilities in sand during solar eclipse would bring healing to their bodies.
Villagers watch a solar eclipse at Pappampatti in Coimbatore on Thursday.
A partial solar eclipse is seen from Lahore, Pakistan.
The Sun God idol covered in a red cloth during solar eclipse period at Sun temple in Bhuleshwar.
Temples remain closed in Dindigul, Tamil Nadu, on Thursday following solar eclipse.
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At 8.10 am, a small dent on the sun was seen. The eclipse had begun. Slowly the moon began to cover more and more of the sun and the students started clicking photos. We could see the low-lying clouds over Mettupalayam and Coimbatore and realised that people in the city were probably not being able to get the best of this event. We hoped that we were not in for a disappointment as well as we were all anxious to view the Ring of Fire moment.
At 8.29, the moon moved into position and gave us a breathtaking view of the halo. The sky was dark but still observable. For the next three minutes, all one could hear was the clicks of cameras as everyone went crazy at the sight of the ring.
As the moon continued its movement, the sun slowly came back to its full glory.
At around 10.40 am, the clouds came back and blocked the view. And stayed put for the rest of the day. But we didn’t care now. A bit of research to find the right place and some luck in terms of weather allowed us to see for ourselves almost all the phases of this rare eclipse.
Obuli Chandran is a science educator and co-founder of Mango Education
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