The Hindu : Kerala / Kochi News : Thousands witness Venus in transit

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jun 09, 2004

Kerala

Kerala - Kochi

Thousands witness Venus in transit

By Our Staff Reporter

People watching the transit of Venus in the city on Tuesday. Photo: Vipin Chandran.

KOCHI, JUNE 8. Thousands of astronomy enthusiasts, led by educational institutions in the city, braved a cloudy sky most part of Tuesday to watch the rare celestial phenomenon of Venus passing through the face of Sun, leaving a host of memories of this once-in-an-eon occurrence.

In most parts of the city, the sun was visible for just about half-an-hour due to rain clouds. But for the clouds, the transit of Venus would have been visible between 11 a.m. and 4-30 p. m. The half-hour respite came between 12 noon and 12-30 p.m. when Venus appeared like a small black dot on face of the Sun.

The Physics Department of the Maharaja's College had arranged three telescopes for the students and outsiders to watch Venus in transit. About 400 students used the facility.

The department had also arranged a series of lectures on Venus. The surface of Venus and its salient features were discussed elaborately at one of the talks. An exhibition of pictures of Venus was also part of the day's programmes at the college.

As fitting the occasion, Venus in transit was watched with the help of a pair of more than a century-old refracted telescopes at the college.

At the Government Girls' High School, Thrippunithura, hundreds of students watched the celestial phenomenon with guidance from the Kerala Sasthra Sahithya Parishad (KSSP).

The wide publicity given to the rare phenomenon had raised so much enthusiasm among the ordinary people that KSSP could not meet the demand for special films that were needed to watch the transit of Venus.

More than 3,500 films were distributed by KSSP by noon on Tuesday and still people were calling at the Parishad's A. K. Gopalan Road office in Edappilli for the films.

"The demand has been overwhelming and we were not able to the meet the demand for the films," said an office-bearer of the Parishad.

In fact, KSSP was forced to innovate on the special eyewares. Initially it had printed out the paper frames with Parishad's logo, address and phone numbers. However, as the demand increased plain frames had to be used.

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