FORTHCOMING ANNULAR ECLIPSE OF THE SUN

---

An annular eclipse of the Sun will be visible from many regions in the Northern Hemisphere on May 31, 2003. Although a solar eclipse, it is slightly different from a total solar eclipse. The difference lies in the fact that at this instant the Moon is at a slightly longer distance from the Earth compared to the times of a total solar eclipse. Therefore, the disk of the Moon is not able to completely eclipse the disk of the Sun at the time of the maximum eclipse. An outer ring of the Sun remains visible. See illustration (i).

This eclipse, therefore, does not have any phenomenon like the diamond ring or the shadow bands associated with it. The accompanying map below shows the regions of the world from which the eclipse will be visible.

The maximum phase of the eclipse can be viewed only from parts of Greenland and Iceland. From the other regions of the globe only partial phases of the eclipse would be visible. India lies at the very edge of the visibility region. Hence one can view less than 20 per cent of the eclipse from here. A partial phase of the annular solar eclipse will be visible from the northern part of India in a belt from Gujarat to Uttar Pradesh. The local circumstances for some of the cities are given in the following Table as per the Indian Standard Time:

Cities	Eclipse Begins	Greatest Phase	Eclipse Ends
Ahmedabad	7:36	7:52	8:07
Agra	7:42	8:00	8:18
Alwar	7:36	8:00	8:25
Amritsar	7:30	8:08	8:48
Bikaner	7:29	8:00	8:34
Chandigarh	7:33	8:07	8:42
Delhi	7:36	8:03	8:30
Dwarka	7:28	7:50	8:13
GangaNagar	7:29	8:04	8:42
Hardwar	7:37	8:05	8:35
Jaipur	7:36	7:59	8:23
Jodhpur	7:30	7:57	8:26
Mt Abu	7:32	7:54	8:17
Patiala	7:33	8:06	8:40
Rajkot	7:33	7:50	8:08
Shimla	7:34	8:07	8:43
Srinagar	7:30	8:13	8:59
Udaipur	7:35	7:54	8:14

From Delhi, a very small portion of the Sun’s disk will appear eclipsed as demarcated in the illustration (ii).

Inputs: Dr. Rathnasree, Director, Nehru Planetarium, New Delhi 

Illustration (i)

Illustration (ii)