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Amateur Astronomy,Infinite Entertainment |
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Written by ANIMESH LAHIRI
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Saturday, 22 August 2009 |
 When I was young I got hold of a book called
‘Children's Encyclopedia'. One of the chapters , which dealt with cosmos,
deeply interested me. I decided I will know more about this when I grow up.
In 1986 there
was some excitement because Halley's comet returned after 76 years. A friend
called me up and asked me to come to Rajabajar science college saying a
telescope was being set up to view the comet. I was excited. When I arrived
there I saw a pipe like object standing .I later knew it was a 3˝ refractor
telescope. Although we tried a lot to locate Halley's comet that night we did
not find it because nobody had a clue where to look at the sky.
However that
day I had the opportunity to view Saturn and Jupiter. And that sight became
etched in my mind forever. I have never seen anything as fascinating as
Saturn's ring ever before. Also when we looked at a star in the constellation
of Great Bear we found it to be a double star. I later knew it was actually an
optically double star.
Anyway experience of that night was unforgettable. A
strange kind of feverish fascination got
hold of me. I decided I must buy a telescope. I also started sky watching
regularly. At night I would go up to the terrace and spend sleepless nights observing
the sky. I began to know the star constellations. After sometime I knew the sky
by heart.
At this point of time I met a man who built telescopes
. I do not know whether at that time anybody else made telescopes at Kolkata.
Anyway , I got a 3˝ refractor made by him.
With a lot of excitement I got up to the terrace
with my new telescope. I hoped to see so many things. Alas, I saw nothing but
blackness. Slowly, after a lot of hard work
I learned how to watch sky through a telescope. Some time later I joined
Calcutta
amateur astronomers club. There we had a 8˝ Newtonian. I began to see so many things.
Like gaseous nebulae where new stars were born. Open clusters of hundreds of
stars. Globular clusters, shaped like a ball where thousands of stars are at
close proximity.
I saw Andromeda galaxy. It is a spiral shaped disk
which you can see during October November . Galaxy is something where billions
of stars are conglomerated .Our own galaxy, Milkyway contains 100 billion
stars. Andromeda is one and half time bigger than Milkyway. So more or less 150
billion stars are there in Andromeda. It is 2.2 million light years away from
us. It means light takes 2.2 million years to reach us from there. So whatever
we are seeing of Andromeda has happened 2.2 million years ago. In our galaxy
Milky way alone there are more or less 1 million sun like stars.
Each day
scientists are finding new planetary systems in our galaxy. So we may well
imagine there so many planets like our mother earth. And that means so many
other planets containing creatures like us, humans. Now think of Andromeda and
billions of other galaxies. The mind boggles.
I do not have that old 3" refractor anymore. Instead
I am working with a new Celestron Nexstar SE.
This article is already quite long .However I feel
it is no less entertaining than Hollywood
or Bollywood. What do you think?
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 02 January 2011 )
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Will we ever reach them?