Sun plays hide&seek on eclipse day!!

Sun played hide and seek with the sky gazers on Friday during the annular solar eclipse in the city. The eclipse began at 11:30 am. and ended at 3:15 pm. Since the skies over the city were clouded preventing the view of the eclipse, many were disappointed. But the clouds cleared at 11.45 am, 1.10 pm for about 15 minutes and then between 2.30 pm and 3.15 pm in the city. Eclipse was visible for a few minutes whenever the clouds cleared the sky. About 2,000 people assembled at B M Birla Science planetarium on Friday to get a glimpse of the eclipse as the planetarium authorities arranged for a few telescopes. The director of the planetarium said that since the eclipse was visible a few times with clouds clearing the sky, it was a 'satisfactory' view in the city."We arranged for a few telescopes for people to get to watch it. We didn't invite any schools or colleges and despite that people turned up in big numbers to watch the eclipse. We didn't take up any research this time as we expected clouds and so we thought it is not interesting time for research. It was visible at few times and the view was not completely disappointing" said Mr B G Siddharth, director, BM Birla planetarium.

A few astro societies too arranged telescopes in parts of the city for the sky gazers to watch the spectacle. Hundreds of people gathered near Veera Bramhendraswamy statue on Tankbund road where Planetary society of India and AP State council for science and technology arranged two telescopes and solar filters for people to watch the eclipse.

Rationalist organisations like Janavignana Vedika too reached the telescope centre on Tankbund and fed food to people to dispel the notions and ' popular belief' that food gets poisoned if had during eclipse period.

"It is a rare phenomenon and we will have one eclipse in 2016 which occurs early in the morning and hence we can't watch it. The next bigsolar eclipse that is visible in the state is only on December 26, 2019 which is why hundreds of people thronged our telescope point" said Sri Raghunandan, secretary, Planetary society of India.

Meanwhile, Maulana Azad National Urdu University in collaborationwith Anwar-Ul-Loom college and NARL Tirupati conducted a 'balloonflight experiment' on the campus to research on differences during atmospheric parameters like temperature, wind, humidity during eclipse. The University conducted the experiment as a part of ISROproject."This is the first university based experiment on trying to know differences between atmospheric patterns during eclipse and on normal days. Three balloon, flights with GPS radio sonde and ozone sonde have been carried out on the campus. We will conduct this for the next two days and know the difference between temperatures during eclipse and otherwise" said Dr H Aleem Basha, from department of physics, MANUU.