Being a grand astronomical spectacle all solar eclipsesevoke great interest among common people and scientists alike. The biggest attraction is to witness the complete obliteration of the solar disc andexperience the illusion of nightfall in the midst of day, along with its accompanying effects on animal behaviour.

The cosmic drama unfolds with a breathtaking display of events like Bailey's Beads, Solar Corona and Diamond Ring. A lot of astrophysical mysteries provoke physicists to undertake experimentation. Furthermore,the disappearance of solar radiation along the vertical column interests atmospheric scientists, who are engaged in studying photo-chemical processes like ozone formation and so on. Considering the Earth as a whole, theeclipse will begin at 13h 56m IST and will end at 19h 10m IST. The beginning of the partial phase of the eclipsewill be seen from all parts of India. However, the ending of the partial phase of the eclipse will not be seen over a major portion of the country like central and eastern regions as the Sun will set before the end of the eclipse. The totality can be viewed from a narrow path in the western, central and southeastern parts of India. The times of beginning and ending of the eclipse will vary from place to place. As far as India is concerned, the best site would be over Saurashtra and Kutch preferably near Bhuj.

The path of total phase in India extends from the west and central Indian planes passing over Kutch, north of Bhuj, Little Rann of Kutch, Maliya, Surendranagar and Vadodra in Gujarat, crossing over to southwest Madhya Pradesh over Burhanpur and Jagdalpur, then over Bhuswal, Jalgaon, Akola, Yeotmal, Chandrapur in Maharashtra, Koraput in Orissa and over Parvatipuram, Salur, Palkonda, Srikakulam in Andhra Pradesh. In India the duration of totality will vary fromabout 30 seconds to about 67 seconds.

Thecentre of the umbra will touch the Earth at sunrise at a point in the Atlantic Ocean east of New York at approximately 1400 IST. At this time the path of totality will be about 61 km wide. The central line after crossing central Europe, the middle East and Pakistan will reach the western end of India roughly three hours later. At this point the width of the totality will be 82 km and the duration of totality on the central line will be 1min 11 sec. The central path will cross India and will end at sunset in the Bay of Bengal. The central eclipse ends at 18h 06m IST when the umbral cone leave the Earth at a point in the Bay of Bengal and the eclipse ends when the Moon's shadow finally leaves the Earth at sunset in the Indian Ocean.

On the extreme north-west portion of the totality path the bright sunshine hour is generally between 4 to 5 hours and as we go towards south-east the sunshine hours decreases and reaches minimum near Jalgaon, it again increases towards south-east and becomes slightly more than4.0 hours near Srikakulam. The IMD has also cautioned that due to the presence of SW Monsoon the sky atmany places may remain cloudy thus obstructing the visibility of ecplise. IDM has also cautioned that the Sun should not be viewed directly without a safe filter to avoid damage to the eyes. A neutral density filter of metallic silver is quite safe for Sun viewing. Such a filter can easily be made by overlapping two black and white photographic filmswhich have been completely exposed and developed to maximum density. Another safest way to observe the Sun is to project its image on some screen put in a shade through a pinhole camera, a telescope or a binocular.However, during totality one should observe withou filter to enjoy the grand spectacle.

The IMD's positional astronomy centre will carry out observations from Bhuj and Surendranagar in Gujarat. The agro-met department of IMD at Pune will undertake a study of crop behaviour and related matter and correlate their changes with the radiation componentsand vertical temperature/humidity profiles within the crop canopy.

They have selected Agromet Research Unit, Anand, Gujarat for this purpose. At Ahemedabad, Nagpur and Visakhapatnam, radiosonde flights will be taken to record upper air meteorological parametres at 1345, 1645 and 1945 hrs IST. At pune, three ozonesonde flights using will be taken at 1400, 1700 and 2000 hrs IST to study the variation ofozone concentrations of the atmosphere.