Bhopal:Monday, July 20, 2009: Longest eclipse till 2114 to fall on Wednesday, Central line of eclipse to pass through Indore, Bhimbethka, Bareli, Murwaha (Katni) People of Madhya Pradesh are fortunate since they will be able to view a celestial event with the sunrise on July 22. On this day will fall century’s longest solar eclipse. Planets and stars like Mars, Venus, Mercury, Procyon, Betelgeus, Cappola etc. will be easily seen. This solar eclipse will be the longest till the year 2114. It will begin from the western coast of India, pass through Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, China and Japan and will end at Pacific Ocean.
The central line of the eclipse will pass through Indore, Bhimbethka, Bareli, Murwaha (Katni) and Sidhi in Madhya Pradesh, Robertsganj and Benaras in Uttar Pradesh and Patna in Bihar. The best view of the eclipse will be in Sidhi followed by Bhimbethka. Sidhi will be at 12 degrees from sun’s horizon and Bhimbethka 6.7 degrees at the time of eclipse. Bhopal is also situated on the course of the eclipse but it will be 40 kilometres north of the central line. The duration of total eclipse in Bhopal will be 3 minutes 9 seconds which will begin at 6.22 am. In Bhimbethka, solar eclipse will begin at 5.30 while sun will rise there at 5.46 am. If the sky is not overcast, a partial eclipse will be visible at that time while total solar eclipse will be visible here from 6.21 to 6.25 minutes. The eclipse will end at 7.28 am at Bhimbethka. There are strong possibilities of visibility of sun’s corona during this period.
Total solar eclipse will also be visible in many cities of the country including Surat, Vadodra, Indore, Bhopal, Jabalpur, Allahabad, Varanasi, Patna and Siliguri while partial eclipse will be visible in most of the cities.