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Bastar tribals watch celestial spectacle

BASTAR, JUNE 8. Tribals, including schoolchildren in Chhattisgarh, today witnessed the rare celestial event.

The Department of Education made elaborate arrangements at a local ground to enable the public to witness the event. A good number of women also reached the place where the department's officials explained the transit's significance.

In Raipur, the Science and Technology Department made arrangements at three places, including the premises of the Board of Secondary Education, while in some other spots people were seen using welding screens and even X-ray film to protect their eyes while watching the planet. Many others remained glued to TV sets.

E-image to France

Elsewhere, astronomers at the Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium in Bangalore enabled their counterparts in France to have a glimpse of the transit by providing them an e-image of the celestial event.

The planetarium, at the request of Group of Astronomers in France uploaded on the Web, some of the first images of the event, when Venus appeared as a tiny black dot passing across the Sun during the six hours between 10.45 a.m. and 4.51 p.m.

``Ours were the first images that went on the Internet. About 84 pictures of the celestial event were up on the Web and we are getting a response from France and other countries that they downloaded the images,'' the Bangalore Association of Science Education (BASE) educator, B.S. Shylaja, said.

In Kochi schoolchildren, youngsters and the elderly enthusiastically gathered to witness the transit.

The Kerala Shastra Sahitya Parishad (KSSP) had since the past week been distributing eclipse shades fitted with solar filters to view the sun.

Priced Rs. 5 each, the shades sold like hot cakes, sources said. The Parishad had also made arrangements to view the celestial event at its office at nearby Edapally.

Eclipse shades had been distributed throughout Kerala.

While the Department of Physics at the Maharaja's College here set up three telescopes to view the celestial phenomenon, `Asterix', the astronomical club of the Alberts College in Kochi is organising a talk on `Transit of Venus.'

UNI, PTI

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