Monday

Solar Eclipse - Watched Live from Kuala Lumpur Planetarium

Solar Eclipse has always been a fascinating occurrence since childhood because of the mythological stories heard from grandpop and also the curiosity to watch the crescent shaped sun shadows in our backyard.

In my community, there is a wide spread belief that pregnant women should lie down in a dark room during eclipse. Further, they would be advised to cover themselves with white cloth and make sure not to toss and turn, in fact I had experienced this. They say that the solar radiation is harmful to the womb and it could leave birthmarks on the baby^^

This time, on 26 Jan 2009 morning, we checked if there are any arrangements in Kuala Lumpur Planetarium, and luckily, there were quiz programs and other workshops for kids, and of course, they had made extensive arrangements for the public to watch the eclipse. The partial eclipse is supposed to be like this:

We arrived there around 4PM and collected the solar eclipse glasses that were provided free of cost!

Naturally, I was attracted to the signboard Webcasting and Astrophotography and as usual started to chat with professionals and learned how they were doing the live webcast of solar eclipse. 

Professionals getting ready for the live webcast...


The videographer setting the angle...

When the eclipse started, generally the crowd was so excited including us. First, we watched with solar eclipse glasses, and then we took turns to view at the solarscopes and other astronomical devices. The live webcast display was good...the orange crescent was so beautiful.

At first, I tried hold the dark films provided by Angkaska in front of my camera lens to take pictures of the eclipse, but couldn't succeed. Then a gentleman helped me to set to ISO 800 manual mode in my puny Canon A540, and after that I managed to take a shot.

But, dissatisfied with this picture, I started taking pictures of eclipse that reflected in various devices!

Eclipse as seen in pinhole projector:

Reflection seen from a hand-held device that looks like a mirror...

Multiple crescent shadows, trapped through circular holes in a white sheet...

In short it was an awesome experience and had a memorable Chinese New Year and Indian Republic day!

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