First Eclipse of 2007 on 'Holi' festival day

Hyderabad, Mar 3: The first eclipse of year 2007, a total LunarEclipse in the early hours, tomorrow, will be visible from everycontinent of the earth.

The eclipse, which starts from 0300 hours, coinciding with Holicelebrations in India, will be visible from all parts of the country,astronomers say.

However, the ending partial phase of the eclipse will be visibleonly from the north, northwest and western parts, in rest of thecountry the moon will set before the eclipse ends.

Ending of the eclipse will not be visible for sky gazers inHyderabad and Nellore in Andhra Pradesh, including Agartala, Allahabad,Bangalore, Bhubaneswar, Chennai, Kolkata, Nagpur, Madurai, Puducherry,Trivandrum and Port Blair.

But people in places like Delhi, Ahmedabad, Ajmer, Amritsar,Bhopal, Davangere, Sringeri, Ujjain, Mumbai, Mangalore and Pune will befortunate to see the moon after the eclipse.

The lunar eclipse will be followed by a partial solar eclipse onMarch 19 coinciding with Ugadi, the Telugu new year and thecommencement of the Hindu lunar new year 'Saarvari.' The lunar eclipsewill be visible in Asia except the eastern parts, West Asia, Europeincluding British Isles, Africa, South America, eastern parts ofcentral and north America almost all of Greenland, Alaska, extremenorth west Canada and Australia.

No part of the eclipse will be visible from much of Pacific basin including New Zealand.

The beginning of the umbral phase will be visible in westernAustralia, extreme south western tip of Japan, extreme eastern parts ofChina, eastern Russia, Philippines and Indonesia and ending part willbe seen in Mexico, central United States and central Canada.

The eclipse slated to end at 0642 hours on March 4 will not be central but total phase may last for 73 minutes.

The totality of the eclipse in the Leo constellation reaches onehour 13 minutes, and at the instant of greatest eclipse at 0451 hrsIST. The Moon will lie in the zenith for observers in Nigeria andCameroon.

During totality the spring constellation will be well placed forviewing and sky gazers can see Spica(Chitta) in the South East of theeclipse moon, Arctures(Swati) at the North East, Alphard in the SouthWest procyon in the west of the eclipse moon. Saturn will be shining inthe north west of the Moon near the western border of Leo.

UNI

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