Chasing the Solar Eclipse

[Eclipse at its peak]

The first experience of viewing a live solar eclipse and basking in the shadow of a celestial object came true on January 15 , 2010 when the entire southern India was pumped up with the phrase of "longest solar eclipse of the millennium". Southern India has been devoid of a solar eclipse of such magnitude as far as my memory archives takes me :P. So not to miss such an opportunity got myself a couple of eclipse goggles from Sapna Book house, Indiranagar for 25 bucks each.

[The first sign of the eclipse]

On this particular day we were on our way to our native(Near Sullia, D.K.) and after the event started from 11 am onwards we stopped for every quarter of an hour to watch the moons progress in conquering the sun. The climax was achieved in the middle of coorg forests at around 1.15 pm when the moon had covered nearly 85% of the sun. At this point the light conditions was similiar to what one would expect at around 7 pm , eventhough I had expected it to turn into pitch darkness. At this point all the cattle were returning back home thinking it was the end of the day :P.

[Me with the goggles]

We tried snapping a few pictures, but it came out saturated. Then snapped a few keeping the goggles in front of the lens. This came out satisfactory as shown above. In the end, the created becomes the creator, as moon is visible just becoz of sun rays. How ironic :).