Up above the world so high
It is just 7 pm but feels like midnight. That’s how dark it is at Nakshatra Mahasabha, an astronomy and stargazing camping site, seven kilometres away from Jageshwar in Almora, Uttarakhand. The participants are mainly from the city, aged seven to 70. They are pleasantly surprised to see a sky full of stars that early in the evening, which is not something they see at home. “I have never seen so many stars in my life,” someone exclaims.
Just then Ramashish Ray, founder of Starscapes, co-organiser of the camp along with Uttarakhand Tourism, announces, “Lights off.” One after one, all the lights of the camp are turned off. The participants switch off their mobile phones. It becomes pitch dark all around. For a couple of minutes, nothing can be seen. But like Ray had said, eyes adapt to star light and gradually myriad tiny, twinkling silver dots appear in the night sky.
Astronomy camps are usually set up in places with minimal light pollution, so that stars are visible clearly. Jageshwar, a valley town surrounded by the Himalayas and covered with tall, deodar trees is one such place. From here, on this night even International Space Station (ISS) hurtling along on its usual ellipse is spotted for a few seconds, eliciting excited squeals and applause from participants.
Heads still up. There is the North Star or the Polaris, rising above the deodar trees. There is the Big Dipper, a star pattern of seven bright stars, which tells star gazers which among the thousand stars in the sky is Polaris.
Draw an imaginary line between the two outermost stars of the bowl of the Big Dipper called Dubhe and Merak; extend that line about five times the distance between the two stars and one arrives at Polaris, positioned almost directly above the Earth’s northern rotational axis, making it a reliable indicator of the north. In a bygone world without GPS, sailors and travellers relied on Polaris and the Big Dipper to learn the direction they were heading to.
Talking of directions, to the east of Polaris, Saturn is rising swiftly. Camp volunteers urge people to assemble by the specialised, high-intensity telescopes at the camp to get a closer look at the planet. It’s mesmerising to see the giant, yellow ball sporting shades of orange and brown, splendid rings, and 146 moons. Its largest moon, Titan, is visible through the telescope.
Up next through the lens is seen Albireo, the twin stars 380 light years away from Earth. The brighter one Albireo A is orangish-yellow while Albireo B appears to be bluish in colour. “I had no idea that there were twin stars too,” says participant Anamika Kamal, excitedly. The 45-year-old homemaker from Delhi was attending her first-ever astrocamp with her husband and teenage daughter.
The two-night camp holds workshops on telescope making, the science behind workings of a rocket and lectures on ancient astronomy. Scientist BS Shylaja’s lecture on the relationship between ancient temple architecture and astronomy is informative and intriguing.
Next to watch above is a spiral, white candy-like object, floating as if unmoored in the deep sky. It is the Andromeda Galaxy, which is 2.5 million light years away from Earth and the closest galaxy to the Milky Way. It is said to have three trillion stars and is larger than the Milky Way in diameter. “You read about these things, but being able to see them is simply amazing,” says Dr Jaisharee Deshpande, a paediatrician living in Mumbai.
The next activity in camp is an astrophotography session. Equipped with tripods, DSLRs and smartphones, campers trek up a hill in the dark, guiding and helping each other on the way. After about 10 minutes, they reach at a spot where light pollution is scanty.
Astro photographer Pruthu Vanara, 23, from Ahmedabad, teaches amateurs to balance their camera’s exposure and shutter speed after placing it on a tripod so that it doesn’t shake and take blurry pictures. After a few minutes, the cameras have captured hundreds of stars in the sky. Yet, a few images are blurred; these cameras must be reconfigured.
A few, however, have taken spectacular images, even capturing the white tail of the Milky Way. “The stars have never been closer,” says Vanara, smiling. The Universe smiles back.