Total solar eclipse dazzles thousands in Varanasi

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For three minutes and four seconds on Wednesday morning, an ethereal blue-grey darkness descended on this eternal city of light. To the east across the Ganga, it was like God's own eye flashing in the sky above, giving pilgrims, bathers and eclipse-watchers in the jam-packed ghats sights they are unlikely to forget in their lifetimes. While clouds blotted out the view in most other places in India, the century’s most spectacular total eclipse of the Sun was witnessed in full glory in holy Benaras.

For three minutes and four seconds on Wednesday morning, an ethereal blue-grey darkness descended on this eternal city of light. To the east across the Ganga, it was like God’s own eye flashing in the sky above, giving pilgrims, bathers and eclipse-watchers in the jam-packed ghats sights they are unlikely to forget in their lifetimes. While clouds blotted out the view in most other places in India, the century's most spectacular total eclipse of the Sun was witnessed in full glory in holy Benaras.

The eclipse displayed all the classical phases associated with the event. Seconds before the Sun was fully blocked by the lunar disc, a brilliant "diamond ring" formed in the sky. Moments later, brightness dropped dramatically as totality began, a phase technically called second contact that began at 10 seconds past 6:24 am . A roar went up at the ghats as people gasped and screamed in awe. Some stared in stunned silence while others shook hands with total strangers in fits of joy. The city was suddenly clothed in a surreal glow of faint light that was eerie, exhilarating and nothing like most had ever seen before.

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Up in the sky, a soft white halo formed around the black ball of the lunar disc. This was the Sun’s atmosphere, called corona (meaning a crown), that’s visible from Earth only during a total eclipse. The sight is often called God’s eye, and in Benaras on Wednesday, it appeared just that – a giant eye in the sky with a black "eyeball" and a white "cornea".

Spots of light, called Baily's beads, appeared around the edges of the Moon’s disc and in photographs clicked by lensmen, rarely-seen solar prominences were clearly visible. These are huge masses of fiery matter that get spewed from the Sun’s surface and are pulled back in by its gravity.

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