By IANS,
Lucknow : Scientific institutions and schools in Lucknow have made elaborate arrangements – from acquiring special goggles to installing telescopes – for people to watch the annular solar eclipse Friday.
The Indira Gandhi Planetarium has purchased as many as 6,500 special goggles and installed several telescopes so that people can view the eclipse.
“We have made enough arrangements to watch the solar eclipse. Only 51.12 percent of the eclipse will be visible in Lucknow,” Anil Yadav, officer-in-charge of the planetarium, told IANS Friday.
“The eclipse will start at 11.57 a.m., it will peak at 1.45 p.m. and end at 3.18 p.m. An annular solar eclipse occurs when the moon is farther from the earth than the usual distance. Due to this, the apparent size of the moon is not enough to cover the sun completely,” he added.
Arrangements to view this rare celestial phenomenon have also been made at a number of schools and at the Regional Science Centre, where a question-answer session on the solar eclipse will take place.
Several schools have also organised exhibitions on the solar eclipse.