A starry night show! तारें ज़मीं पर!!

Treat of sky treasures with students of Kalpana Chawla Space Academy

✪ A night long camp near the base of Tung fort, Lonawala
✪ Bliss for the children and what a treat the sky is
✪ “रात है या सितारों की बारात है!”
✪ Orion constellation? No, it is a huuuuge cluster!
✪ Excellent sky without light pollution and treasure of clusters
✪ Joy ride of the children in severe cold night
✪ Trek near Tung fort and new exposure for the children
✪ Remarkable experience of staying in wonderful nature

Hello all. Last weekend, I had a great opportunity to accompany the students of Kalpana Chawla Space Academy, Lonawala for a sky watching camp. While teaching them astronomy as a subject, sky watching is a regular activity. But watching the sky from city and from a remote place almost free from any light pollution is vastly different. Here it was all shining stars! These days such dark skies without any light pollution is a rarity. Actually it was a great delight. In astronomical terms, you could just see stars as faint as 5th magnitude with just your eyes. Those clusters which are difficult to spot in cities in a telescope, were readily observable here! Even finderoscope was sufficient! The great Omega Centauri cluster- it was visible to the naked eyes! When the early morning Venus suddenly erupted from behind the mountain, it was just a search light! But let’s begin from the beginning!

 

 

While meeting the students of Kalpana Chawla academy in Lonawala’s Adv. Bhonde Highschool as the guest lecturer, I was eager to take the students to such a place for overnight sky watching. Then it was revealed that one student of this academy- Swaraj stays at such a place. His father runs such a camp site. So this was arranged. 23 students- boys and girls from the academy, Shri. Sanjay Pujari sir, Shri. Bhonde sir and others left for this place. While leaving, there is excitement as well as suspense in the mind- would the sky be glorious? Fingers crossed! The road is passing near by Bhushi dam of Lonawala and then it crossed INS Shivaji area. Now it is entirely a ghat road! After some time, it is mountains all over! When I saw the dark blue sky and thick layers of mountains preventing lights from Lonawala, I realized what we are up to! Some students of the academy have cycled here before. They are singing songs and talking zestfully. After Ghusalkhamb, the road became narrow and now it is well inside the mountains. Just when it became dark, we reached Tungwadi, at a very interior point in Sahyadri mountains! The party has already began in the sky! It is just Ohhh, Aha now onwards!

We have reached Lonawala forest camp (name on the google map) or Pawana hill camping (name of the website)! Just before us there is the downhill and vast backwater of Pawana dam! Tung fort and his companions are standing nearby. Aha! Tents are waiting us! Immediately started to set the telescope and then it paved the way for the delightful treat! Mr. Pathare ji from the camp switched off all the lights and thus began the glorious show of lights! Stars everywhere! Many telescopic objects are visible to our eyes here. To share this joy with the students, I have my 114 by 500 telescope and the binocular. Also one student- Vishal Para has his 70 mm telescope too!

I just wondered to see the 2.2 million light years distant Andromeda galaxy and it was spotted too soon! But as it is much in the west, it is slightly faint. But seeing it is special! Unstoppable zeal of the students, innumerable questions, their fun and their naughty actions! Sheer loads of fun. As we have a large group, it is taking time to even see one object. After Andromeda galaxy M 31, we observed Orion nebula- M 42! There too are too many stars! In fact, to just the naked eyes, entire Orion constellation is itself a huge cluster! What to say about Pleiades! Sheer brilliance! With the binocular, it is stars everywhere in Hyades, Auriga and Orion! And even in known clusters, many new stars are visible just to the eyes! And when the students watch all this, their faces also brighten! Then the Beehive cluster in the Gemini- M 44. Told the children to observe it with averted vision. It is a concept in optics. While observing faint objects, if we don’t watch directly and watch it indirectly, then it becomes little clear. This is called averted vision and it is a useful technique. Later on we observed Jupiter and also zeta Ursa Majoris- the binary star. It is all just this-

झगमगाती हुई जागती रात है

रात है या सितारों की बारात है

Hardly we have seen five- six objsects and it is already 2.5 hours passed! Dinner of the students is remaining. One girl- Bhavika hasher birthda today! Needless to say it is celebrated in a special way. I somehow stopped myself from going to my telescope when the cake was being cut. Chinmay sir sang wonderful songs! He just went on singing many melodious songs together! Due to the new moon night, this show is missing the moon. But these songs compensated for that!

As the night is moving, cold is increasing. Glanced the sky through the binocular. In Auriga, many clusters are visible to naked eyes. The telescope is revealing wonderful details! All the students enjoyed binocular as they liked. Slowly the Pleiades started to move downwards. The Ursa Major are rising up in the North. Regulus star is approaching the zenith! Finally took the break at around 10:30 in the night. All are ready to get up at 4:30 to watch the morning show! Somehow just threw myself in the tent amid this cold. In the tent it was cozy.

Amazing Centaurus, shining Scorpion and an headlight named Venus!

The students were ready by 4 am. But they did not sleep entire the night and also they did not lie down silently would be more proper. But the sky in the dawn! Awwwe! Awessom! No trace of any clouds and fog! Completely crystal clear sky! But equally horrible is this cold! But who cares to pay attention to it when such a brilliant show is going on! Towards south it is all Centaurus! Initially I had to search the glorious Omega Centauri cluster, but later on I could see it with just the eyes. It is looking like a large spot of cotton! Due to mountains, the Alpha and Beta in Centaurus and the jewel box cluster in the crux was missed. But there is plenty of wealth in all Scorpion! There was some time till remaining part of Scorpion becomes visible. But very easily the Great Hercules cluster- M 13 and M 92 from  Hercules was visible. The students observed it with averted vision! They also found many clusters through the binocular. Plenty of rich spots are there near Leo and Virgo region too. Regular friends of Arcturus, Spica and Regulus are there, but they are also shining much! It is just like this-

तारें जमीं पर
उतरें जो आँगन को सुनहरा सा करने
मन के अंधेरो को रोशन सा कर दें
ठिठुरती हथेली की रंगत बदल दें
खो न जाए ये...

Then the binary star Beta Scorpion. Antares and M4 globular cluster just near it is also visible. When the bottom of the Scorpion emerged from the mountain, NGC 6231 cluster near the double star is there! Wonderful site! And of course, Ptolemy cluster and the butterfly cluster (M7 and M6) were going to shine! They are observable even to the eyes. Then Altar rose in the sky. Now it is time for Venus! Our own Milky- way galaxy and its whitish patch is difficult to be seen as when it comes little up in the sky, it will be twilight. But still, when entire the Scorpion was up, a very faint outline of the milky way became visible. In April at this time, entire the milky way shines gloriously! But now it is time for Venus. I just went to find it at its position in the sky. Just a fireball like an headlight! It has risen behind the mountain and now it became suddenly visible! What a great sight this is. All objects in this dark sky shine so much and this is Venus! How can it remain behind! Along with Venus, in this 1.5 hours, 10 objects were observed through the telescope and the binocular!

Along with all this, discussions with the students, their bombarding questions and their energy! That too in this shivering cold! Slowly slowly East got lightened! It started to become reddish! But one more object is remaining! And it was also observed! The sky changed its colour, the dam view got more clear. And then towards east of Venus, a small dot emerged- Mars! This completed the sky show! The discussions, questions of the students and also their answers and their fun continued.

But now the cold is too much. The sun is rising, but it too has to pass 10 degrees behind the mountain to reach us. After some time, we went for a small trek with Pathareji of the camping. He informed the students about many natural aspects such as Kewada- Screw pine flowers, mountain stream as source of water. Due to mountains, here underground water is not available. But mountain stream is there! That’s the reason why the carrot and the cucumber were tasting so unique during the dinner. Mr. Pathareji informed the students about various trees and background of Tung fort. Then he showed them unit of bee- keeping kept in his farm. Oh, this is also a beehive cluster! He told the students that recently this approach road has been constructed. Living conditions are tough here. His children get up at 4 am in the morning and race with time to reach Bhonde Highschool in Lonawala on time. Belt of Simba dog has sharp knife like edges! One understands how tough it would be to live here...

After returning to the camp site, Pujari sir, the main in charge of Kalpana Chawla Space Academy also told many points to the students. Einstein had stated that humans would live as long as the bees keep on living. He also informed the students about people working for conservation in this field. He told them importance of reading books on persons like George Washington Carver and others. Thus, this glorious event was concluded! I got a huge satisfaction of doing so joyous for the students. And yes, the night sky was sooo glorious that while enjoying it with the eyes, I just missed to take even one photo. But still, to give a glimpse of how the sky was like, there is one photo on my blog- The Milky way captured by me in last April. You can share this post with your dear ones. Thank you!

(Thanks for reading! Niranjan Welankar 09422108376. Conducts sessions for fitness, meditation, sky watching and fun- learn for children.)