"The Ring of Fire"

"The Ring of Fire"

The Beauty of the Celestial Spectacle.
From the Land of the Gods !

Yesterday, the 26th of December 2019, in the morning of the day after Christmas, the Sun and the Moon came romancing in the sky. It was a spectacle to watch, next only to a Total Eclipse of the Sun which I had the good fortune to witness and photograph way back on the 24th October of 1995, and that happened on a Deepavali Day.
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But unlike a Total eclipse of the Sun by the moon, the Annular eclipse does not cover the sun entirely. A ring of fiery Sun is left exposed in the day time sky. And no Corona comes out for view. Neither the Diamond Ring nor the Bailey's Beads nay the Shadow bands could be seen.
The spectacle here is only the shimmering 'Ring of Fire.'

But, what a splendid show it was ! We were mesmerised by the magical power of the natural phenomenon. At that final moment of annularity the sky miraculously opened up. Adding to that, the moving clouds formed a natural solar filter which masked the majority of the glazing solar light which dazzles and is injurious to our vision on prolonged careless watching, let alone use an optical instrument.

We started early in the morning the day before the eclipse, under a cloudy sky. And then it rained ! And it seemed there was no hope. We simply enjoyed the drive in the pleasant weather. We were a team of four people (Aravind of 17 years, Mr. Nathan, Mr. Karthikeyan & myself Anand).

We drove to the desired area but an unfixed destination, due to the vagaries of inclement and unpredictable weather conditions.
Normally, when eclipse expeditions are planned, it is done with thorough pre-planning, starting many months before, taking into consideration many factors like, sky condition, weather conditions, duration of the event, the ideal place of viewing the main spectacle, instrumentation required for proper viewing and photographing, etc., Seasoned amateur and professional astronomers choose a place of observation from where they can do their scientific study without being disturbed by crowds and other distractions.

We enjoyed the weather. We travelled more than five hundred kilometers by car chasing the setting sun which finally revealled itself.

And there was hope in our hearts.
Solar filters were not showing the Sun without the clearing of clouds.
Indeed, the passing clouds became our natural filter. The filters became an added protection.

The main telescope could not be used for imaging the Sun, as it was not possible to polar or drift align it earlier, due to continual cloud movement. However, it is was used for visual observation with a thousand oaks objective filter. We could see the waning phase of annularity and the Sun was of an orange colour through the filter.

Atlast, the next day we managed to capture a part of the image of the Sun by over the eye piece mobile phone projection.

I upload the images and videos here for what its worth. It was simply spectacular. We bathed in the divine light ! It was indeed an ecstatic religious experience which was scientifically rewarding too.

Photos & videos by mobile phones.
Samsung A30, Poco F1, Vivo V5.
Telescope used: 8" SCT with thousand oaks objective filter and 27 mm plossal eye piece.
Place: Canal Pirivu, Walayar, near Palakkad, Kerala state, India.
10.8132° N, 76.7980° E.
Photographs were taken by 
A Aravind.

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