Deepanjan Nag's Magnum Opus

 

This is now one of my favorite movies of all time. Just blew me away.

India has launched its 1st mission to Mars. The launch was a success. I hope the long trip to Mars stays on course. It won’t be easy. Most missions to the red planet have ended in failure. All the best, Mangalyaan!

I wish this institute existed when I was a school-goer. Would have loved to be a part of it.

We followed Galileo and peeped into the heavens. Jupiter and its 4 largest satellites looked awesome. I may try another eyepiece tomorrow for a better magnification. The photograph, captured thru an ordinary digital camera, doesn’t do any justice to what we saw. Along the way, Asha, true to her name (which means ‘hope’), attained the height of optimism by trying to click a flash-assisted photograph of Jupiter! Next time, I would expect her to do the same with some black holes. Astronomy awaits the genius of my wife! Jupiter VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL ...

Will try to spot Jupiter tonight through the aptly names Galileoscope.

It’s the most beautiful red giant in the sky. There’s an interesting article on Rediff about the star possibly exploding in a supernova next year. Though this is plausible, the chances are rather slim, I’m sad to say. If at all it explodes, I hope it happens in winter…and during my lifetime. Nights would be amazingly beautiful for at least a few weeks since the BOOM. When it happens, I know Dad will be standing beside me as we look in awe at the stellar show. After all, he was the one who told me about red giants and supernovae when I was a kid. My fascination continues to this day.

The launch of the cryogenic Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle, GSLV-F06, from Sriharikota failed today.

See it in full screen. It’s awesome!

Hama Star 63 & Galileoscope finally come together!

Hama Star 63 My very first tripod arrived today and I’m all agog! Ever since I flew from India last year, the skies have been a bit of a disappointment. Gone are the crystal-clear tropical skies and welcome to a perennial shroud that has rendered my astronomical refractor vestigial. Still, I was nursing a hope that the clouds could be somehow wished away and then my Galileoscope would help me peer into the larger satellites of Jupiter or the magnificent rings of Saturn. The arrival of my tripod now makes me fully equipped for a night of bliss! My calendar shows me the phases of the moon and weather forecast. My RSS reader tells what to expect in the night sky, Stellarium twins the sky on my computer, my iPod stocks Miles Davis and Liszt to accompany me in my heavenly solitude and my wife stuffs the wardrobe with clothes to keep me toasted in the English chill. I must be living a charmed life! The Hama Star 63 is really tall, it’s actually taller than me when fully extended –...

Great Britain, as seen on Jan. 7, 2010 by the Terra Satellite. Credit: NASA

Astronomy and classical music are two of my greatest fascinations. One relies on longitudinal waves and the other, transverse. Listening to a BBC essay on Haydn immensely surprised me to learn that the discoverer of Uranus, the brilliant astronomer, William Herschel, was also a composer of classical music. It was equally surprising that Haydn even met the celebrated astronomer and one of his renowned religious works, The Creation oratorio, might have been partly influenced by the atheistic view to the birth of our Universe.

I’ve finally placed the order for the star diagonal from Tejraj.