It all started in the second week of june when Ajay Talwar (AAAD), one of the most talented Astro-photographers of the country called me and said that he was planning to revisit The Indian astronomical Observatory at Hanle, Ladakh after our successful 2008 visit. How could I possibly say no? Off course I would go.

We were soon joined by another member from our last expedition Vikrant Narang (SPACE) . After Days of planning and multiple trips to Ajay’s place, we decided different kinds of photography we would be doing at Hanle Observatory. These included Morse code star trails, trails using fisheye lens, time-lapse videos and many other kinds… By the time we finished the planning we were to carry equipment of that weighed almost 150 Kgs by airplane from Delhi to Leh and then beyond to Hanle.

Finally June 30th it was time to fly to Leh. As popular websites suggested we started Diamox two days before starting our journey. After paying a hefty amount for extra luggage our flight landed at one of world’s highest airport The Kushok Bakula Rimpochee Airport (10,682ft) at leh with just about 60% of the oxygen as compared to sea level left in the atmosphere. The first thing you do is go to sleep. Total bed rest for the first 48 hours is the only method to acclimatize to high altitude. From my last experience I had realized that the first signs of Acute Mountain Sickness or AMS show within a few hours of rapid ascend. Fortunately enough after a complete day of rest nothing happened, giving credits to our medicine friend Diamox we went out to the Leh market, which was just a 10 min walk up the hill. We had our dinner at the famous German Bakery (highly recommended) their Italian and Lebanese food is fantastic there..Anyways we went back to Indian Institute of Astrophysics guest house where we again rested.

Next day woke up late and then went to Lamdon Model School in Leh to give a half an hour presentation about our expedition and to popularize astronomy amongst the kids who were very enthusiastic and post presentation started requesting their teacher to take them to Hanle Observatory. Later in the day we went for a little recce to look for a good site to do the night photography we had planned we would be doing in Leh city. We fixed two spots for the night under the stars one was the famous Shanti stupa which is the highest point near the city from here we could see the entire city, the Stok glacier and the sky beyond giving a beautiful panoramic view of the entire valley. The other location we chose was a roof of a cute little café right in the middle of leh city, the terrace provided us an awesome view of the famous leh palace, the Jamia Masjid , The local Buddhist Temple, and the entire Old Leh Market.

As the night approached we set up our equipment, Vikrant went to Shanti Stupa to click a multiple camera panorama, Me and Ajay went upto the café terrace to setup the 7 feet long camera track to capture a series of images to be processed to form a movie later on….. This is what we captured that night….

Click on photo to enlarge

Click on photo to enlarge
More about the trip and journey from Leh to Hanle and back to Delhi to follow…. Many more pretty pictures to come as well

Raghu Kalra
AAAD

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On the 16th of May 2010, an interesting celestial event - the lunar occultation of Venus, will take place in daylight hours. All of India falls within the belt of occultation.

A lunar occultation is when Moon passes in front of a celestial object - which in the case of this event, is Venus.

Well, it also happens that all of India will be witness to this event in daylight hours which would make viewing the event a difficult enterprise.

As seen from Delhi, Venus will slip behind the Moon at 3:51PM and emerge from behind the Moon at 5:18 PM. Viewing this event requires a precise knowledge of where in the sky Moon and Venus are at any given time. If one looks exactly in that direction; and the sky is clear, without any dust or haze, one can see the thin crescent Moon and even Venus, with the naked eyes, in daytime. On any day when Venus is in the daytime sky, if the sky is a clear blue and one knows the exact location of Venus in the sky,- one can see Venus.in daytime.

How is one going to look exactly at the correct location in the sky? Well, the Ram Yantra at the Jantar Mantar observatory can help people look at specific directions in the sky.

People from the Nehru Planetarium, the Amateur Astronomers Association, Delhi and the Science Popularization Association of Communicators and Educators, will be at Jantar Mantar to help visitors use the Ram Yantra, to view this event.

There will also be telescopes set up at the observatory. Even if dust and haze prevent one from viewing the event in the daytime, people visiting the observatory in the evening can enjoy telescopic views of the close conjunction of the Moon and Venus immediately after sunset.