Everyone must be knowing something about the recent partial solar eclipse that chennai experienced. Well , i have my own experiences with it. As an astronomical enthusiast myself, well it does not sound like how i wanted it to, its more like an Astronomy enthusiast, I was very eager to watch the solar eclipse that morning. I heard that the solar eclipse was shown through special telescopes in the Birla Planetarium from about 6:30 in the morning. This was not a chance that I was going to miss. So I got up early, so early that I felt like as if I woke up even before I got to bed. I set out immediately to the Planetarium without even having coffee. It was cold outside and riding the bike quite fast only made it worse, to top it all I was wearing a 3/4ths which left 1/4th of my leg exposed. I make it sound like as if I went to Antarctica but its more or less the same. In about 7 or 8 minutes I reached the place only to be welcomed by a long queue.
There was a hell a lot of crowd, everyone dressed like as if they were going to some opera or something. I looked odd amongst those heavily dressed people. To top it all I was also wearing this cap that rappers wear. People did look at me more than they had to, like as if I had just landed from Mars or something. No, thats not possible. Not two wonders of astronomy on the same day. Most of them had come with their family, particularly with their kids. The lady standing right before me had come with her grandchildren. She kept saying that the planetarium in Mumbai was much bigger than this one in Chennai, for about a 100 times. no, 107 to be accurate. I had to accept her statement with a 'yes' for like 107 times. Now, she is an astronomical enthusiast.
The 'show' started exactly at about 6:40. The queue started moving slowly and steadily. The moon had taken a part of the sun. The lady standing before me got all excited. She started seeing the solar eclipse without the safety glasses through the naked eye. She literally started jumping like as if the sun was performing some private dance routine just for her. Her excitement started to touch dangerous realms when she suggested to her grand children that they also see the solar eclipse through naked eye. Not listening to the officers warnings or my advise, she actually forced the kids to see it. But luckily nothing happened, I mean the solar eclipse did happen but not the fatal eye accident that could have happened. The solar-eclipse-showing-officers (pardon my eloquent planetarium jargon) there showed us the solar eclipse through these glasses that welders use to protect their eyes from sparks. They actually didn't show it through telescopes even though there were various telescopes kept on display. They also had some kind of a reflection thing that reflected the sun which was getting taken over by the moon and it was just reflected on a white chart............ OK I just don't know how to describe that reflection thing, so, forget it.
The show was over within minutes. I saw the eclipse and just left. I came home in about 10 minutes. My sister was calling me to the terrace. She was having fasttrack glasses and was watching the solar eclipse. She offered me the glasses and asked me to watch it. It was much clearer than seeing it through a heavy dirty welding glass. Whatever................
1 comment:
"She kept saying that the planetorium in Mumbai was much bigger than this one in Chennai, for about a 100 times. no, 107 to be accurate. I had to accept her statement with a 'yes' for like 107 times. Now, she is an astronomical enthusiast."
You sure do have a word about you da! Keep at it!
Post a Comment