A spell of rain is always a welcome change in the hot tropical climate of Vijayawada. But Sunday’s rain played spoilsport for the skywatchers who were eager to witness the “ring of fire”, the solar eclipse.
“I rummaged almost every room of my house for the 3-D glasses I had preserved to view the eclipse but could not see anything in the grey, cloudy sky,” said W. Chandrakantha, a student from a local school.
“After my father explained to me that this solar eclipse would be an annular eclipse where the moon would be so far from the earth that its relative size would fail to cover the sun completely and leave the outer rims visible, thus creating a ring of fire in the sky, there was no way I could think of missing this celestial spectacle. But the rain spoiled it all,” rues Akshit Darapaneni, a ninth class student.
When the Sun, the Moon and the Earth are aligned in a straight line or an almost straight configuration, such that the Moon comes between the Sun and the Earth blocking the rays of the Sun from directly reaching the Earth, we witness a solar eclipse. Based on the alignment, there are three kinds of solar eclipses—total, partial and annular besides a rare hybrid of an annular and a total solar eclipse.
Eclipses also have several superstitions associated with them traditionally passing from one generation to the other. Jana Vignana Vedika (JVV), an organisation working to create awareness among people about the importance of science in daily life and also to bust the evils of superstitions, played its role.
Members of JVV, Prof. Ramachandraiah from the National Institute of Technology, Warangal, former JVV State president Ravi Kumar from Eluru in West Godavari district, Tummala Srikumar from Vijayawada, Jilani Basha from Nellore, youth coordinator Hanumanthappa from Kurnool and Chilakamurthy from Visakhapatnam organized viewing of the solar eclipse at their respective places in open grounds maintaining social distancing, while for others, an online platform was created where 6,500 people participated.
“Monsoons eclipsed the celestial spectacle in Vijayawada. It was just visible in Vizag, in Nellore upto 46 % and in Kurnool 46-50 %. The visibility was only upto 60 % in both Andhra Pradesh and Telangana states,” said Mr. Srikumar, who is the State coordinator of the Science and Technology wing of the JVV, a master resource person of Vignan Prasar and a professor in Andhra Loyola College.
Members of another JVV, a splinter group, were at Prakasam Barrage eating pulihora to bust the myth that one should not eat anything during the solar eclipse.
