As the country celebrates Republic Day on Monday, a partial solar eclipse will occur in the afternoon.
As the country celebrates Republic Day on Monday, a partial solar eclipse will occur in the afternoon when the moon will pass directly between the earth and the sun.
The partial phase of the eclipse will be visible in south India, the eastern coastal belt, most of north-east, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep, director of Nehru Planetarium N Rathnashree said.
The eclipse will be annular in regions covering south of Africa, Antarctica, South East Asia and Australia.
Annular solar eclipse occurs when the moon is farther from the earth than normal in its elliptical orbit and hence, its apparent size is not sufficient to cover the sun completely, director of Science Popularisation Association of Communicators and Educators (SPACE) CB Devgun said.
Therefore, even though the sun-moon alignment is perfect, the moon will appear slightly smaller in diameter than the sun and a thin ring of sunlight will remain visible around the dark silhouette of the moon, he said.
The perfect-alignment of the sun and the moon means the apparent sizes of both the celestial bodies will be the same when viewed from earth.
The eclipse will begin at 1026 hrs though it will be visible in India only from the afternoon and end at 1630 hrs, passing through various stages.
The first city to witness the eclipse in India will be Kanyakumari at 1408 hrs while it will be visible from 1417 hrs in Port Blair, the last Indian territory in which the celestial phenomenon will continue till 1625 pm.
At its greatest phase, the eclipse will be 92.9 per cent which will last for 7.51 minutes, Devgun said.
Port Blair will witness a greater phase of the eclipse at 39.4 per cent. In other parts of the country, the visibility will range from 2.2 per cent in Hyderabad to 21.4 per cent in other areas, he said.
During an eclipse moon is in the apogee (farthest point from earth). Hence the entire disc of sun is not covered, which is otherwise covered at perigee.
On July 22, this year, there will be a total solar eclipse when moon is at the perigee.
It will not be advisable to watch the eclipse with the naked eye, cautioned Devgun.
Viewing the sun during partial, annular eclipses and total eclipses requires special eye protection or indirect viewing methods, he said.
The sun's disc can be viewed using appropriate filters to block its harmful radiation. Sunglasses are not safe, since they do not block the harmful and invisible infrared radiation which causes retinal damage, he said, adding that only properly designed and certified solar filters should be used for direct viewing of the sun.
He also cautioned that self-made filters using common objects like a floppy disc removed from its case, a Compact Disc (CD), a black colour slide film must be avoided at all costs.
The last partial solar eclipse occurred on August 1, 2008.
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