Staff Reporter -- Millions of Bangladeshis watched in awe as the longest solar eclipse of the century darkened the skies yesterday morning.
About people in thousands of northwestern Panchagargh fell in shadow of the full eclipse soon after the sunrise. They witnessed the century's longest total solar eclipse amid cheers and fears as the rare astronomical event took place, according to reports reaching us from there.
Residents of Dhaka saw a partial eclipse of 93 percent while the Astronomical Society set up makeshift camps equipped with telescopes at Thakurgaon and Panchagargh to facilitate the viewing.
The height of the eclipse took place between 7:55am and 8am ranging between 83 percent in the south and 100 percent in northern districts while the total blackout hit northern Dinajpur and Lalmonirhat and at Panchagarh and Thakurgaon for 2-4 minutes, reports said.
An eerie calm descended as the blinding solar disc was blotted out. Just before totality, as the sky darkened, many flowers fold up and birds and animals got confused.
The temperature dropped. And then a final diamond-like flash just before total darkness set in. At this stage, only a few wisps of ephemeral light from the solar corona was visible and the 'wrong stars' appeared in the sky.
It was an experience that lasted just a few minutes, but would for lifetime, eclipse watchers said.
Panchagarh Stadium was packed as crowds of excited people began arriving from 5am, to watch the event, said Bangladesh Science and Technology Museum curator Sukallyan Bachhar.
"The stadium was packed full for the eclipse. We handed out about 1,000 filters for people to watch safely."
"There were clouds, so we couldn't see the whole event uninterrupted. We had intermittent views as the moon first began passing in front of the sun," said Bachhar.
"But we were lucky enough to get a clear view of the entire eclipse that lasts for three or more minutes", he said.
The event frightened many people in nearby villages as they were not aware of the unusual astronomical incident said a resident of Panchagargh frontier town Ainun Nishat.
He said, "Many of the farmers working in paddy fields screamed in fears and took shelter at home thinking it to be the doomsday as the rare celestial event was best observed from the northern districts."
"The four minutes of total eclipse was largely clear though clouds shrouded the sky a little for a while for sometime . . . we could not even see anything only within a distance of 200 feet during the event," Nishat reportedly said.
The longest total solar eclipse of the 21st century, it will be unsurpassed in duration until June 13, 2132, while Bangladesh will have to wait another 105 years to see another full solar eclipse, on June 2, 2114.
The eclipse was first sighted at dawn in eastern India near the town of Guahati, near Bangladesh's eastern borders with India, before moving north and east to Nepal, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Bhutan and China.
After leaving mainland Asia, the path crossed Japan's Ryukyu Islands and curved southeast through the Pacific Ocean where the maximum duration of totality reached 6 min 39 seconds.
Inhabitants of Narayanganj watched centuries largest solar eclipse despite cloudy weather as elsewhere in the country.
People along with their family members remained glut in front of the television sets to view the solar eclipse but pregnant women were barred from watching the eclipse.
Religious minded people both the Muslim and the Hindus performed rituals and prayed to Almighty Allah for the welfare of the mankind.
Source: nation.ittefaq.com
