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Partial eclipse to be visible in the North

Staff Reporter

Country will have to wait until 2009 to see a total solar eclipse

NEW DELHI: A partial solar eclipse will be visible in the northern parts of the country on Wednesday.

The eclipse will be total in parts of Brazil, Ghana, Nigeria, Georgia and Kazakhstan. India will have to wait until 2009 to be able to see a total solar eclipse.

According to Nehru Planetarium director N. Rathnasree, the safest way to view the partial solar eclipse will be to project an image of the sun on to a screen using a simple pinhole camera, a telescope or binoculars and observe all the visible phases of the eclipse.

On that day, Nehru Planetarium will be conducting an eclipse sky-watch for visitors and students. Students will also be performing some measurements of angular diameters of the sun and the moon as well as the fraction of eclipse at different times using simple geometrical techniques.

Since it would be a late afternoon eclipse, interesting views of the eclipse can be obtained against the skyline and monuments by those equipped with a digital camera that has some optical zoom.

According to Dr. Rathnasree, the camera must be aimed at the setting sun when the eclipse is in progress.

As seen from Delhi, the eclipse will start at 4-33 p.m. in the afternoon and end at 6-02 p.m.

The maximum of the eclipse will be seen at 5-19 p.m. The Capital will see about 17 per cent obscuration or fraction of area of the sun covered by moon at the maximum of the eclipse.

As for the simple pinhole camera, it can be made by a sheet or a box made of cardboard.

A small hole on the sheet or one face of the cardboard box has to be made with a pin to allow sunlight to enter through it and fall on a screen held at the other end.

The screen must be shaded from stray light and a small circular disk of the sun will be imaged on the screen.

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