A different kind of "star" party

Sky watching and observation of a star in daylight!

Hello. Some of us may think that they have never seen any star or any planet. But this is not true! Even in the daytime, we do see a planet and a star! One star is quite visible in the daylight! For that special star, a unique star- party recently took place. “यार, तुम तो दिन में भी तारे दिखाते हो!” I got opportunity to show sunspots to the Standard III students of Indira Gandhi National School, Wakad in Pune. This programme took place at Mauli’s world farm house near Hinjewadi. Shri. Abdullah Sheikh of Adventure Education Tour and astronomer Shri. Ajay Karnik gave this opportunity to me. This was the day- time sky watching activity!

Actually with our eyes we cannot observe the Sun. But with proper solar filters, we can observe it telescopically. All harmful rays of the Sun are filtered. 99.99% of the rays are filtered and then the Sun also becomes pleasant and gentle and very sweet! It resembles with an orange. We also see dark spots. The sun-spots are actually fires only. But these fires have relatively low temperature as compared to other hot fires and therefore they look black. Their size can be as great as the size of Earth!

Even the brightest Sun has dark spots, then! And their number greatly increases after every 11 years. In 2025, there will be plenty of sun-spots. They also have an impact on the earth. A Russian scientist Alexander Chizhevsky had studied cycles of the sun-spots for long time and then he had found that when there are very huge sun-spots, then severe things happen on the Earth! After all, we are the babies of our Sun.

In the programme, the students and elders also enjoyed the pleasant Sun. While observing it through the filter, there were around seven to eight sunspots. In this 2 hour session, 160 students observed the Sun. When the children observe the Moon through a telescope, for them it is a great sight! And their joy and reaction is a great sight for us to observe! It was the same here. It was great to see energy, questions and playfulness of the children. It was a great satisfaction to give something good to them.

(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: 7 January 2025)