Raj witnesses sparkling ‘ring of fire’

Jaipur: While a number of enthusiasts gathered to witness the rare celestial event in which the Sun looked like a ‘ring of fire’ during the solar eclipse at Ganganagar’s Gharsana, some in Jaipur viewed it through a special instrument named “Sashthamsa yantra” - a semi circular concave arc - which can accurately observe the speed of the Sun.
While another object could be observed through the lens at Jaipur’s B M Birla Planetarium, which was initially to believed Venus, but later it was said to be a lens artefact.“In living memory, this has been used for the first time to witness solar eclipse. A few tourists and staff too witnessed the solar eclipse,” said Gopal Sharma, assistant administrative officer at Jantar Mantar.
The annular phase started taking shape around 10.15am and was at its peak around 11.56am. The annular shape lasted for 39 seconds.
Assistant director of Jaipur’s B M Birla Planetarium Sandip Bhattacharya said, “The experience of the solar eclipse was excellent. The light went down, and slowly improved, this experience was quite eerie. It was a significant drop. We collected some temperature data for analysing it in future. We will be analysing it in the next few days.
Astronomers from Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Pune, Delhi and other places went to Gharsana to witness the ‘ring of fire’ in Gharsana, Ganganagar. An almost similar view was seen in Suratgarh of Ganganagar, where people witnessed stars shining in the middle of the day. A solar eclipse occurs on a new moon day when the Moon comes in between the Earth and the Sun and all the three celestial bodies are aligned.
An annular solar eclipse will occur when the angular diameter of the Moon falls short of that of the Sun so that it cannot cover up the latter completely. As a result, a ring of the Sun’s disk remains visible around the Moon.