solar eclipse: Your guide to viewing the last solar eclipse of the decade

The final solar eclipse of this decade is happening on the Thursday, December 26. The eclipse is predicted to last through the day.

The beginning of the eclipse can be first seen from the Arabian sea coast of Oman at around 07:59 IST and the annular eclipse will become first visible in west of Baharain at 09:06 IST.

The full solar eclipse or
surya grahan, will begin post 10:30 AM; the eclipse will be visible for approximately three minutes in India. Partial phases of the solar eclipse will be visible from all over the country in varying magnitude depending upon the geographical position.

Thursday’s eclipse will be visible in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Oman, India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Northern Mariana Islands, and Guam.

A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby totally or partly obscuring the Sun for a viewer on Earth.

In view of the eclipse, the MP Birla Planetarium released a set of guidelines for safely viewing the eclipse, as the infrared and ultraviolet rays of the Sun can cause severe retinal damage, if precautions are not taken.

One should not look at the Sun directly for even a little period without proper protection. Even when 99 per cent of the surface of the Sun is covered by the moon during partial eclipse, the remaining light is still intense enough to damage the eye, Debiprosad Duari, Director, Research and Academic of MP Birla Institute of Fundamental Research, told PTI.

Proper solar filters with certified appropriate optical density against radiation which are safe to the eyes should be used in front optical devices and the naked eye, he said.

Aluminised mylar films of approved thickness and transmittivity coated with black polymer are the safest for use in solar goggles that one generally uses for eclipse viewing, he added.

According to him, the best method to view the solar eclipse will be to use a pinhole camera or a telescopic projection on a suitable surface.

Use of unsafe filters like smoked glass, polarising filter, sun glasses, photographic neutral density filters, colour films are not advised to view the solar phenomenon, he said.

Population centers in the path of the annularity include Udhagamandalam, Kozhikode, Coimbatore, Jaffna, Trincomalee, Singapore, Singkawang and Guam, Duari said.

In the Indian sub-continent, the annularity phases will be seen within a narrow path grazing the southern Indian peninsula through Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu before crossing the Bay of Bengal for northern Sri Lanka.