Sir, - Congratulations on your coverage of the solar eclipse. The photographs and reportage were eye-catching and informative. However, I'd like to draw your attention to the caption for the photograph at the bottom of page 7 of your issue of August 12th. It shows eclipse watchers, one of whom was myself, at the car park of the Papal Cross in the Phoenix Park. The crowd is looking at the sky with arms outstretched. The caption reads: "Salute to the sun: in fading light at 11.11 a.m. the large crowd in Phoenix Park ignore the warning to watch the eclipse without protection. Photograph Pat Langan."
I'd like to point out that we were not looking at the partially eclipsed sun. What we were trying to do was to spot the planet Venus. At this point of the eclipse-watch, David Moore of Astronomy Ireland was broadcasting on Gerry Ryan's radio show and the broadcast was relayed to us standing in the car park.
David was pointing out a number of things we should be aware of. One of these was the possibility of seeing Venus. To help locate its position in the sky he asked that we raise an arm and outstretch the fingers, then place the little finger so that it pointed at the sun, turning the hand so that the thumb was at the seven o'clock position. There, with any luck, we should spot the planet Venus. In the event, either due to the fact of the sky not being darkened enough or to the presence of wispy cloud in this part of the sky, we didn't see the planet.
Yours is not the only medium which gave an erroneous explanation of the crowd's attitude. RTE television news broadcasts of the day gave exactly the same interpretation. - Yours, etc., Donal O'Keeffe,
Ashdale Gardens, Terenure, Dublin 6W.