BENGALURU: Despite it being a cloudy day, people turned up in large numbers at the Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium to witness the solar eclipse with a hope that the clouds would clear up.
Many excited and optimistic children dragged their parents out of their homes to witness this celestial event. The cloud did clear up later giving them a glimpse of the sun which had the entire crowd in awe. A few of them didn’t buy the special goggles provided by the planetarium but used the telescope and large screens provided at the venue. A lot of children who have enrolled themselves in a one-year course at the planetarium were measuring the intensity of the light and tracking the drift of the sun using an app on their phones called ‘physics toolbox’. They also penned down their observations.
Shravik, a 13-year-old said he was intrigued by the whole phenomena and had dragged his mother to the planetarium. He was apprehensive of using the glasses and wanted to be sure that he won’t lose his eyesight.
Another kid, Anusha (11) said, “When I came to the planetarium today, I felt that I want to become a scientist and wanted to understand more about the solar eclipse and the solar system. It’s like a new world out there.” Her father Sandeep said, “This is the first time I have come out with my daughter for any celestial event. I did plan to watch the earlier lunar eclipses that happened this year but I couldn’t make it. I am extremely happy that I could watch this in my lifetime.”
Sudhanshu, an 18-year-old boy studying at UCLA said, “I am visiting India during the winter break and came here with my brother Siddarth as the weather report said it is less cloudy here compared to where we live on Airport Road. He said we also didn’t have glasses and hence, we had to come. I am happy that he made that choice.”
Another visitor Musheer brought his two sons to the planetarium and said, “I hadn’t bought the special goggles as I had no hope of the clouds clearing. We finally viewed the solar eclipse on the screen.”