Covid keeps astronomers home to view eclipse in Goa

PANAJI: Though the Panaji observatory, managed by the Association of the Friends of Astronomy (AFA), is closed during the monsoon, clear skies on Sunday made it ideal to observe the solar eclipse on June 21. With lockdown restrictions and social distancing norms in place, stargazers and amateur astronomers experienced their first lockdown eclipse observation from home.
“It was a very subdued event involving only family members and neighbours. All the active members of the AFA conducted the observation on their own while following social distancing norms,” AFA president Satish Nayak said.
For the previous eclipse in December, AFA had distributed solar goggles to its members. The same were used to view the eclipse on Sunday. “About 40% of the sun was eclipsed. Despite it being the monsoon month and cyclonic storms frequently occurring, the skies were clear making it ideal for observation. The eclipse begun at 10am and by 11.30am approximately, it was at it’s maximum,” Nayak said.
A similar situation prevailed for the previous eclipse, he said wherein a large portion of the sun’s face was covered. For the astronomical event, then, the AFA team had travelled to Mangaluru to witness the phenomenon. For the eclipse on Sunday, they had planned to write to the government to fund their trip to observatories in Uttarakhand for a similar expedition. However, lockdown restrictions played spoilsport for the astronomers.
“An event like this requires viewing from a place that is calm and has maximum visibility. We were zeroing down on various places in March but we had to drop the plan,” Nayak said.
However, the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bengalur,u came to the rescue of stargazers as it livestreamed the entire event on Sunday.
“Many of our members observed the event through their website. We hope that we have better luck for the next eclipse.” Nayak said.