Put on your solar goggles and step out of your home or hop up to your office terrace to watch the millennium’s longest annular solar eclipse which began at 11.30 am. The eclipse is visible in most part of the country.

You can expect to the sun to look like a ‘bitten-off biscuit’ in the city; in some parts of India, it will appear as a ‘ring of fire’.

An annular eclipse is when the sun and moon come exactly in line, but as the moon is smaller, the sun looks like a ring.

In Mumbai, the eclipse will last for four hours, starting at 11.16 am. It will be the most visible at 1.18 pm when 64 per cent of the diameter of the sun will be covered by the moon.

“In this phase, the sun will look like a bitten-off biscuit,” said Piyush Pandey, director, Nehru Planetarium, which is arranging for enthusiasts to watch the spectacle. “The solar telescope fixed on the planetarium’s terrace will be used to project a large image of the eclipse on a screen in the lobby,” said Pandey. “A few smaller telescopes will be put up so people can view the eclipse safely.”

The Nehru Science Centre will give goggles for the viewing. “A part of solar radiations penetrate ocular tissues and can cause permanent retinal damage,” said Dr. S Natarajan, medical director of Aditya Jyot Eye Research Institute.