Report - Skywatch event at hymamshu jyothi kala peetha



By p6; Published 24 Apr 2007

The event was split up into two days, 23rd march 2007 (friday) and 24th march 2007(saturday). Here is a brief report of both days.

Day 1(friday,23rd march 2007) : The BAS members present for this day were just myself.. it was suddenly decided, so I couldnt inform the other members. The event started at around 6:30 pm when all the students were asked to assemble in a classroom so that i could talk to them for a while.There were already about 50 students. I talked about how a reflecting telescope works and also talked about the three objects that i would eventually show them - venus, moon and saturn. I talked for about 15 minutes after which the students came batch by batch to the terrace. I showed them venus, moon and saturn. The equipment present was my 8"f/6 newtonian reflector. The sky was very clear with not a speck of cloud and the views of saturn were something amazing. The students really enjoyed the views of saturn as well as the moon. The event got over at around 8:30 pm after about a 100 students from 5th and 6th grades went home satisfied with what they saw.

Day 2(saturday,24th march 2007) : Today, Hemanth, Naveen, Nithin and Myself were the BAS members present for the event. The event started again at around 6:30 pm with Hemanth giving a very interesting talk to the students of 7th, 8th and 9th grades. Then at around 7:00 pm, the students came batch by batch to the terrace only to find that the sky was getting clouded up! Today was the day when both my telescopes i.e. my 8"f/6 and 4.5"f/4 celestron were present and sky was misbehaving! The sky eventually cleared giving good sights of venus, moon and saturn. I am sure that as the 100+ students left the place, they would have surely been wondering about a career in astronomy!

in short, both days were amazing both for us and for the students as well. something not to be forgotten for a long time.