Not sleepy today? Go out and look south. There is a nice conjunction of Moon and Mars. along with Jupiter and Saturn nearby. Not every day you get to see this …
Category Archives: fun
Penumbral Lunar Eclipse Webcast 16th Sep 2016
Watch AAAD member Ajay Talwar webcast the eclipse live from his terrace
in Gurgaon
Broadcast begins September 16, 2016 9 PM
Click Below to Watch
Tonight’s Sky: June 2016 – Saturn in Opposition
Looking South 2131 IST
Summer is here and one cannot miss Saturn and Mars in the night sky. Looking south-east, Saturn is a stunning magnitude 0 star right now, appearing towards the west limb of Scorpius ( more in Ophiuchus ). Saturn hits opposition tonight so its really bright. Also its rings are tilted 26 degrees to us earthlings, which means that small telescopes can get a really good viewing including the famous gap in the rings called the Cassini division. Mars also hit opposition a few days back so both planets should make backyard astronomers and enthusiasts extremely happy
Now don’t just sit there and read this. Grab your gear and get out and have fun under the sky.
Jupiter Venus Conjunction Tonight
Greetings Fellow Earthlings
Tonight step outside the house for a change and look West at sundown. You’ll be greeted with a spectacular planetary pair of Jupiter and Venus almost hugging each other in a nice visual conjunction. Kind of ironical considering Jupiter is God of War, and Venus is the God of Loveeee. This treat will continue for a few days so do not worry if you’re sitting under the clouds right now.
Sky and Telescope astronomy magazine suggested that the event closely resembles the Star of Bethlehem which, according to Christian tradition, revealed the birth of Jesus to the Biblical Magi, and later led them to Bethlehem.
How to make a Mini rocket
Disclaimer: AAAD doesn’t take any responsibility for any sort of damage that could potentially arise out of following this video. Use at your own risk
Dramatic Time Lapse Video of International Space Station at Night
Check out this dramatic time lapse footage of earth seen from the int’l space station at night. Pretty darn cool
You can see all the air glow, auroras and thunderstorms. The city lights are not real but an overlay captured using a special IR camera called Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS)
All in, a pretty spectacular video.. the music is quite dramatic too
Physicists Look for Evidence of time travellers on the internet
Physicists R. Nemiroff (of APOD fame) and his student Teresa Wilson, recently published their results of a grand internet search to look for evidence of time travelers. In a nutshell they were looking for ‘time traveler activity’ over the internet, say a timer traveler used his time machine to move back in time and say…send an email, or put information online about world events that just happened way before it actually did. Time travel to the future is allowed by special relativity, however there is much debate if we can actually go back in time.
The search as you may have expected didn’t turn out much …. but made for a pretty good story.
To read more you can download their preprint paper here
Happy Equinox
The Autumn equinox happens today Sept 22nd at 2044 UTC. This moment marks the official end of summer in the Northern hemisphere and hopefully New Delhi too! Hopefully the weather gods will get the memo too. The autumn equinox marks the time of equal length days and nights. From now on nights will become longer than days in the northern hemisphere. Hopefully that would mean that mortals can sleep a bit more.
Clear Skies
Admin
XKCD: Starlight
Sky Observation Etiquette
1.Carry your dinner and snacks (bring some extra so you can share with others)(There is no food available around so u must bring your food)
2. One must carry warm clothing as it will get cold near the lake. Temperatures can go to 10°C
3. Carry chocolates: they are very helpful as they keep you awake and give you energy
4. VERY IMPORTANT!! always carry a torch covered with red cellophane sheet, any light source(torches etc) without a cellophane sheet is strictly prohibited .
5. Carry your equipment with you(even if you don’t have telescope you please join us anyways, there will be a couple of telescopes around you)
6. cover you camera flash with black tape so no light comes out and always keep the flash on off mode
7. We are not providing any transport so you will have to come on your own
8. If you bring a camera bring a tripod with it to shoot