I’m not very much interested in astronomy and movement of spacial bodies, but when something major goes on I jump on the bandwagon and enjoy the show. Today I watched the partial show eclipse that happened around 13:00 and that I would have missed if it wasn’t for the guys in the office who went semi-insane about it.
In compliance with Murphy’s Law I didn’t have my camera with me and couldn’t make that authentic picture that you see above. But talking about solar eclipse without showing a picture is like eating French fries without ketchup, so I had to cheat. I draw the picture in Gimp and in my opinion it represents what I saw fairly good.
Before you start asking how come I saw it so dark, I will explain. It is, I hear, a well-known fact of life that any given person can see a solar eclipse with his bare eyes a maximum of two times in his life. Once with his left eye and once with his right eye. As I have already mentioned, I am not a big fan of astrology astronomy and thus I decided to save my chances for something bigger. At least for a total solar eclipse.
I was lucky enough to work in the office full of engineers who spend a grand total of twenty seconds designing a special Partial Solar Eclipse Watching Device. What they did was tear apart a very old floppy disk and use the magnetic film folded in half. The folding thing provided for some comfortable functionality. Everyone using the device could easily adjust the brightness levels to his or her likings. And it worked exactly like in photography – any change of any option by one point gave exactly one half increments or decrements of visibility. I have no idea how they could come up with such a powerful though simple item in such a short time, but it sure makes me proud to work with all of them.
If my Gimpy masterpiece got you all hooked up into astrology astronomy and solar eclipses than you should probably read this general explanation of what I am talking about. Take your time and try to understand everything it says there. The next eclipse is in March of 2006, so I guess you have enough time in front of you. Anyway, you might also want to check Space Weather website that has all sorts of information about space and weather and other things that I don’t understand.
Update: astrology and astronomy are two different things and it’s not a good idea to confuse them.
By astrology I think you meant astronomy :)
It was pretty cloudy in Bangalore so we kind of missed it except seeing it the pictures in the newspapers the next morning. But there are all kinds of superstitions as well that one must have a bath after the eclipse, etc. A doctor came on a TV show the previous evening and reassured everybody “if you want to have a bath its good, but don’t have it just for the sake of the eclipse” :-)
Sanjay,
You are right of course. :)
I’ve fixed the mistake.