NEW DELHI, JULY 21: Indian scientists are gearing up to carry out a host of experiments during the last total solar eclipse of this millennium on August 11 which would be witnessed over a narrow strip over central India.The duration of the eclipse, which will begin at 1356 IST and end at 1910 IST, would be between 30 to 67 seconds in India, an official release here said today quoting the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD).The positional astronomy centre in Calcutta will carry out experiments at Bhuj and Surendranagar in Gujarat, which would fall in the `totality' of the eclipse. During `totality', the sun is entirely covered by the moon at a specified location on the earth's surface.IMD's agricultural meteorology division in Pune would conduct a study on crop behaviour during the eclipse at the Agromet research unit in Anand. It would correlate changes in crop parameters with radiation components, temperature and humidity, the release says.Upper air meteorological parameters would be recordedthrice over Ahmedabad, Nagpur and Visakhapatnam during the eclipse and the variation of ozone concentrations in the atmosphere would be studied over Pune.The path of the eclipse, which would be best viewed from Saurashtra and Kutch regions of Gujarat, would range from Gujarat to south-west Orissa.
