On the radio...

The big bang happened 14 billion years ago and then 9.5 billions years later the sun was born out of some supernova remnant (a hypothesis) and then Galileo looked up at the sky with his telescope 100 years back (whose anniversary is being celebrated next year, 2009, as International Astronomical Year). I read all that in the science text approximately a decade back and it made as much impression as the everyday newspaper or less.

Some months back I joined an astronomy/astrophysics course just to satisfy my astro-instinct developed over years by pointless star-gazing on romantically lonely nights. Come September, my 24th birthday was blessed providentially with a telescope in my hands. Subsequently, the 127 mm reflector was turned up around 60 deg alt to view the planet Jupiter and its moons (4 of 'em), all in a line next to each other, trudging along in the constant revolution ruled by Kepler's laws. Was it a sight ! It was the most elegant and most emphatic proof of science for me. Like Ellie Arroway says, "I was hooked".

A trip to GauriBidanur Radio Heliograph (GRH) was made as part of the curriculum. Ramesh Sir (IIA) unfolded the electronics behind the radio telescope, an eye for the invisible data from extra-terrestrials (stars and aliens all alike), I was definitely paying attention. A subsequent trip for 3 days followed the former, to dig out more details of the array of antennas.
Here's the GRH over kilometers, with over 192 antennas ...

Cool things in the night sky (with a 5" reflector)

I once had this list of cool things I wanted to look at in the night sky. Made that list somewhere in early 2002... But I never got a chance to make use of that list as I didn't have a telescope then, and now that I have a telescope (a bad one) I don't have the list (As per Murphy's law).

Anyway... Here are somethings I remember:

1. The great nebula [M4..]
The only nebula that can be seen from the naked eye, and much better with a 5" reflector.

2. The pleides
The star cluster can be seen as a huge colection of stars when seen through a telescope. The starts look kinda bluish and very twinkly. ("twinkly" sounds funny)

3. The Haydes
Bunch of dying red giants all scattered apart at the head of Taurus. Aldebran the bright star is not a part of the constellation its somewhere between Earth and the reg stars cluster.

4. The milky way stretch between Sagitarius and Sagitta.
Seen as a nice hazy patch from the neked eye and seen as million specks of far off stars from a telescope. You'll be looking straight at the center of your galazy when you're looking in that direction... Can spot any of them block holes?

5. The milky way stetch parallel to the longer line of Cygnus
Another thick part of the milky way that looks... milky

6. Castor (Gemini)
A binary of binaries ball dancing with each other and another binary orbiting the binary of binaries... (Does it sound like 001010001010100101101101101101001001? )

That's pretty much all that's popping out of my head right now. Another thing I wanted to observe was Mira in Cetus which is an irregular star the cause for its irregularity unknown. Its quite easy to spot in the southern sky with the long and irriting to trace Cetus. (Hmmm... I don't know if the constellation Mira is in is Cetus or Hydra. I'll edit this post if I was wrong). One of the few stars with a thick yellowish tinge. Its not something to see one and be happy about but rather something you keep looking at everyday until you are lucky enough to spot a change in magnitude by yourself. That's what amateur astronomers do. And what do you know... if you were the first person to actually see a change in the magnitude of Mira, you'll ba famous... and it could change anytime now, or in the next few hundred years.

There was another dim star in Scorpius which has a nice tint of green in its twinkle. Looks nice. And also Polaris... a binary of a bright and a dim star with a rather small period of revolution about each other. As polaris is always visible, you could just compare the magniture of it with some neighbouring star everyday...

That all folks... (Remember the looney toons music at this point)