Festival of light in the sky!

Sky watching event in Anjanvel near Lonavala!

✪ Finally the comet is seen!
✪ Star show in a dark night sky
✪ Thrill to watch a shadow on Jupiter surface caused by its moon
✪ Rain of stars in the sky
✪ Wonderful landscape in the mountains
✪ Bedsa caves- two thousand years back!
✪ Anjanvel- the week-end spent well!

Hello. Recently we could experience the light festival in the sky. We could enjoy sky watching in a serene campus of Anjanvel agro tourism near Lonavala, Maharashtra, located amid wonderful mountains and forts. We could also share this joy of sky watching with others. Hereby I wish to share the experience with you. After many cloudy nights, me and my friend Gireesh Mandhale reached Anjanvel farm house. Glorious mountains and wonderful terrain! Crystal clear blue sky is assuring us that sky watching would be excellent here! We reached when it was getting dark. Venus is already shining in the west. In a hurry we set up the telescopes and prepared ourselves for the comet! Slowly faint stars appeared in the sky. As the darkness grew, small stars started shining! And yes, here is the comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan- ATLAS) at its expected position! With a large 8" aperture, a modest 4.5 " aperture telescope and a 15 X 70 binocular, it was clearly visible. As the eyes adjusted gradually, its tail is also visible. It was not visible to the naked eyes.

In the evening, we also showed the comet to our friend. Gireesh took a photo of the comet through his large telescope. Through the large telescope, its features are more clear. Adjacent faint stars are also visible. Great! This Anjanvel farm house is located around 50 kms from Pune! I had also seen the 2023 comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) in Anjanvel only! This is my friend Rahul Jagtap's farm house. What an amazing place! The clear sky is assuring us that next two nights would be excellent! As this is the Friday just before Deepawali, it is relatively less crowded. Spacious and lush green campus! We had another sky watching session in the night after the dinner. This time, we saw objects such as Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus, Pleiades cluster, Orion, Hyades, Auriga clusters, Andromeda galaxy and others. Saturn’s wonderful rings and the moons revealed by the large telescope! This thrill is there for next two nights also. We enjoyed sky watching till late night and then rested for some hours.

We got up in the dawn. In the East, Leo has risen! After watching various clusters and binary stars, we observed the Moon. Moon and its craters through the telescope! Wow! In the dawn, we saw that positions of the moons of Jupiter have changed! This is a movement taking place at a distance of around 75 crore kms! Observing Jupiter and Saturn through the large telescope is sheer delight! Now there is rain of stars towards south of Sirius. But it is very cold and so much of due is there that it is almost causing mud! But what a climate! Slowly the East became orange. Then we kept the telescopes in the room and strolled in the campus. After some rest, we went to the road in the mountain- going towards Morgiri- Ghusalkhamb and Amby Valley side. Now it is the turn of the earthly scenes! Dense forests, greenery everywhere and mountains! Many forts are also near from here. The nature makes us speechless! Backwaters! This mini trip is also amazing. Now let’s move to the main programme.

Comet and sky watching programme

I and my friend Gireesh Mandhale- we have organized this programme for sky lovers on 26th and 27th night in Anjanvel farm house. The evening session is from 7 to 8.30. It mainly includes observation of the comet, little discussion on astronomy and also observation of other objects. Then those who stay they will enjoy sky watching after the dinner. The sky is great on the evening of the 26th. So we could enjoy watching the comet again and also could share this with others. But we just missed taking photos. We even had DSLR with us, but the photos somehow remained. Sky watching part was excellent, though. Due to dark sky, the setting Sagittarius and a faint outline of the milky- way! People in Anjanvel, other groups and sky- lovers who had come specifically for this programme enjoyed it. I need to mention one student from Class VIII- Varad Chandurkar. He has brought his own small telescope and he is observing Saturn and other objects through his telescope! Remarkably, he also captured the photo of the milky- way and also the comet! Many people have liking, but depth and understanding is rare which he is showing. He has good knowledge of constellations, their position in the sky and methods of observing them. Sky watching session with such people is a delight, always!

After the comet, we also observed Saturn, Andromeda galaxy through the telescope and some clusters in the milky- way region and Epsilon Lyrae binary star near Vega and Albiero binary star through the binocular. Gireesh explained about major constellations and showed them by using the star pointer. Seeing so many stars in the sky was overwhelming- not only for children, but also for the elders! Saturn is the most liked object!

Shadow caused by a moon on Jupiter’s surface

In the post- dinner (needless to mention that food is awesome in Anjanvel farm house!) session, we could observe one rare event! Through the large telescope, we saw four moons of Jupiter and its equatorial belt. In properly processed images, its great spot also gets visible. But while observing this time, we actually saw a shadow on the surface of Jupiter and it was caused by its moon! A black spot was there on Jupiter’s surface! In no time, it moved and vanished also! This is a kind of a solar eclipse occurring on that small region on Jupiter! Such thrilling experience we had!

As the night went further, it became more and more cold. We watched other objects such as Pleiades cluster, Hyades cluster, Orion nebula, Andromeda galaxy and clusters in Auriga. Thus we watched the sky for two excellent nights! We also watched early morning objects! When some people saw the early morning due, they thought it is mud due to the rain! Of course, it was rain of stars in the sky and rain of due in the dawn! When finally the Sun arose in the morning, through a solar filter, we also observed sunspots. After every 11 years, the sun spots increase greatly. Many such sunspots are visible. Even the luminous Sun has such spots! Such spots are actually less bright flares. They appear black in relation to other flares. But these spots are equally beautiful compared to the moon craters. And when we zoomed further, the Sun almost appeared like an orange planet! Its surface was visible! This was also a thrilling experience.

Two thousand years old Bedsa caves!

After some rest in the morning we again went for a ride. We went till Kamshet to drop Gireesh’s parents who had come for the programme. On the way, we came across the marvel of Bedsa caves. The trek was a small walk with proper stairs. But the caves engraved in a large stone, just like the world famous Ellora caves! More than two thousand years old! What that time had been! How generous the people then would be! So much of heart for such vast construction. Equal would be engineering capability! Chaityagrih and Stupa! So many people would have meditated here in the small rooms in this Vihara! How great minds they had to think about coming hundred- two hundred generations! Mesmerizing! The DJ party going on down in Bedsa cave indicates the present, but these subtle caves are pointing glorious past! In the entry point of the cave we can see vast landscape! Beautiful to be here! But we need rest and so we could not enjoy it for long.

Self- mirroring sky!

The sky is good on the second evening. We could observe the comet and other objects. There are some clouds in the sky and therefore the comet appeared a little faint. Andromeda galaxy was also slightly faint. But this 2.2 million light year distant and our neighbour galaxy makes us realize how small we are! And also tells us how great we are; as through our feeble 12 millimeter eyes in excellent sky conditions we can watch this 2.2 million light year distant galaxy! What a great miracle this is!

Anjanvel- the weekend spent well!

This was the delightful experience there. Festival of lights! And also festival of darkness in form of Sunspots and the shadow on Jupiter! We could equally enjoy amazing campus of Anjanvel. Here we can enjoy so much- we can have a trail walk near a waterfall, we can have treks to forts and also forest hikes. It is a wonderful destination for staying. There are arrangements to sit and relax near waterfalls and in the nature. It has diverse trees and nature conservation efforts are made! On top of this, there is homely warmth and tasty food! The nature on the earth and up in the sky is equally beautiful!

This was the event that we experienced for three days and three nights. Bedsa caves was another exuberant experience! It was great to travel with my friend. The photos of the landscape and also photos of the sky can be seen on the above link. On my blog, you can also read my other articles.

(Thanks for reading! You can read my sky watching experiences on my blog. You can also read about my experiences of trekking, cycling, running, meditation, sky watching etc. there. If you wish to get updates of such activities, you can contact me. Niranjan Welankar 09422108376. Date of writing the article: 6 November 2024)