Clouds ‘Eclipse’ The Ring Of Fire In Bhubaneswar Sky; 3K Visitors Disappointed

Bhubaneswar: A cloud cover hampered viewing of the much-awaited last solar eclipse of the year and left 3,000 visitors to Pathani Samanta Planetarium in Odisha capital disappointed.

The planetarium was expecting around 4000 people and accordingly arrangements were made for mass viewing of the eclipse, but bad weather spoiled it all.

Excited to view the ring of fire, people started queue up at the planetarium around 7 am. “We could not go ahead as planned because of the bad weather conditions. The partial eclipse was visible only for 10 minutes from 8.50 am to 9 am,” said deputy director of the planetarium Subhendu Patnaik.

The ring of fire, a rare phenomenon, was visible for about 2-3 minutes in Chennai, Coimbatore and Tamil Nadu, he said.

The projection of the eclipse was redirected to those places and shown on an LCD screen at the planetarium.

Among the attendees were 1,800-2,000 students from within and outside the city.

In an effort to make the session productive, expert members at the planetarium cleared misconceptions related to the eclipses. “It’s a myth prevailing in the society that we should not have food or go out of the house during the eclipses. They are just a play of light and shadow,” said Patnaik.

A special show on eclipses is expected to hit the screens of the planetarium in 2 to 3 weeks, he informed.