My amazing journey of sky watching

 

Today in this blog, I will walk you through my exciting journey of sky watching and how it was started.

On my recent birthday, my parents gifted me a telescope. It was so powerful that with it, I can see the craters of the moon clearly. That was a turning point in my journey. From now on I watch stars and planets on weekends with my telescope. Everyone heard of the Great conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter on 21 December 2020. It was a rare and spectacular astronomical event because it happens 400 years. So if anyone misses this event, then the person will not be able to see them in their lifetime.

Jupiter and Saturn is so close that they are only 0.1 degrees away from each other. It seems like they are merged in each other, but the truth is that they are on the same line of sight. This happened due to their different orbital speed. But once in a while (here 20 years), they cross each other. So the distance between them is only 5 to 6 degrees. But the crossing or conjunction on 21 December is a special day because, on this day they are only 0.1 degrees away, which is far closer than 5 to 6 degrees, which only occur once in 400 years.

Here are some tweets-

What a shot taken from Melbourne Australia 🔭🪐 pic.twitter.com/HFPryhHS7X

— rebecca hill (@beccidee17) December 21, 2020

A Rare Photograph Captures ISS Moving Between Jupiter and Saturn During the Great Conjunction https://t.co/xzyySBKUcO #Photography pic.twitter.com/qIMn5Y7WC9

— Art + Socialmedia & Technology (@artsocialtech) December 24, 2020

 

This time lapse of the recent Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn condenses the subtle hour-long spectacular into a mind-blowing snapshot next to the world's tallest building. Watch it here! https://t.co/ctYUc2HJqC pic.twitter.com/L7JasyENkp

— Live Science (@LiveScience) December 24, 2020

By In ancient times, humans are fascinated by the sky and especially about stars in the night sky. The ancient civilisations of the Indus valley, ancient Indian astronomers and explorers, Roman and Egyptian people are very experts in observing the sky. They are great astronomers, they study the pattern behind it and compiled many books on it. The whole science of astronomy is developed by them. Their observations are so accurate that even today when modern astronomers check the correctness of their findings, most of the results are correct.

In the 20th century, modern humans started exploring space and its mysteries. Humans build rockets, telescopes and satellites to explore the further most corners of the universe. From childhood, I was fascinated by stars and moons. It is so amazing for me how these objects are created and how they are staying in motion without any driver. I am curious to know all these since then. So I start questioning about stars and moons to my parents. They answer these questions according to their knowledge, which feeds my curiosity and increases my fascination with space.

credits

 

During my primary and secondary school days, our science teacher was so kind and knowledgeable that she explained various astronomical concepts during regular classes. One day during a class she told us about skywatching as a hobby. People went to remote areas in the night where there are the least man-made lights, they spend the night watching stars and planets and moon and some moons of other planets as well with their telescope. It was the turning point in my journey. Since then I started going to my grandparent's house on weekends to watch stars because they stay in a remote village and the sky was clean there, no air pollution and no light pollution and the sky is clear and mesmerising. There are all types of stars from bright white to faint red and from dazzling yellow to magenta. I used to find various constellations of stars like Ursa Major, Ursa Minor and Leo etc.

This is how my journey started as a stargazer. Since childhood, I have observed stars and planets like Sirius. Earth's Moon, Jupiter, Saturn, rings of Saturn, moons of Jupiter likes Io, Ganymede and moons of Saturn and much more. I had watched many astronomical objects and much more to come. This is a never-ending journey that continues till death. I was proud of my hobby. As you know, good hobbies start from childhood, my hobby started in childhood and continues thereafter. In recent days, most children play mobile games so heavily that they are unaware of the enormous world outside. Parents should ponder curiosity in little children so that they can spend time with nature instead of spending time with the virtual world playing crime or shooter games on smartphones or tablets.