Symphony of Science – ‘We Are All Connected’ (ft. Sagan, Feynman, deGrasse Tyson & Bill Nye)

Watch Cosmos TV Series by Carl Sagan at www.hulu.com/cosmos

Bad Astronomy by Phil Plait

It changed to a blog at discovermagazine.com (It has become “bad” astronomy.). The old site at http://www.badastronomy.com/intro.html seems abandoned today and looks just like the abandoned Apollo landing sites (or the old Kosmandu site). Let’s hope Phil Plait will consider redesigning and running the old site like before again (and also run the new blog at Discover). Anyway, for newcomers, Bad Astronomy is an amazing website that clears general misconceptions about Astronomy and Science like the Apollo landing hoax theory. Why not go and check it out for yourselves?
No, not the new blog.
*I am wishing on a star to see a debunk of this post.

As for the group, Kosmandu has also been quietly performing its activities, looking at the stars and inspiring others while these days other groups are performing larger mass observation programs.

Kosmandu has also seen lot of shuffles in its membership just like it happens in Nepali politics. There were times it was attacked my malicious people. But the trick is to keep doing the work. Keep inspiring whoever or whatever comes in the way. Use anything for the benefit of larger population. Nepal is also going through hell right now. With strikes, so-called andolans and headaches, this is no different than hell. And it is a wonder how people love to suffer in this hell. There’s no other way than to wait until the storm passes away and peace comes back. Looks like King’s absense is a bad omen for the country even for skeptics like us. These are the times when spirituality is most wanted. Hoping for the comeback of the King and restoring order in the nation.

Jai Nepal!

Francois Gautier in Indian Express, Monday, October 25, ’99, wrote:

In astronomy too, the “Indus” (from the valley of the Indus) have left a universal legacy, determining for instance the dates of solstices, as noted by 18th century French astronomer Jean-Sylvain Bailly: “The movement of stars which was calculated by Hindus 4,500 years ago, does not differ even by a minute from the tables which we are using today.” And he concludes: “The Hindu systems of astronomy are much more ancient than those of the Egyptians – even the Jews derived from the Hindus their knowledge”. There is also no doubt that the Greeks heavily borrowed from the “Indus”.

The only problem we are facing today is that the dates have lost their seasonal relevance due to precession of equinoxes. That is, it is true that Sun enters Makar, the 10th sign of zodiac on Magh 1st.* But it is no more the day of Winter Solstice when the Sun starts its Northern ward movement as people still celebrate the day for. The winter solstice has preceded to 7th of Poush. Now the problem is we are not sure when to observe these festivals rather than there being any error in the calendar. Its because we cannot incorporate both the phenomenon into one day anymore. The calendar in itself is accurate to what it follows—the sidereal year. The problem has arisen because of season coming earlier each year due to slight change in the direction of tilt of Earth each year. The committee could rather focus on changing dates of some religious festivals which are of seasonal significance. For example, if Maghe Sanktranti is more about Winter Solstice than Sun entering Makar, then it should be rightly placed on Poush 6th / 7th (December 22nd). One could propose a change in the names too, since no longer it will be a Sankranti (the first day of Magh when the Sun enters Makar). There should be decisions on each of the religious festivals about the actual dates where they should be placed on the calendar rather than changing the calendar itself because not everyone will like the proposed changes. It might only ruin the calendar’s significance.

*(The zodiac as per divided by the Vedic astrologers has 30 degrees for every sign along the path of the Sun. The modern day division set by International Astronomical Union is more based on the true shapes our ancestors drew joining the stars)

Posted using ShareThis

Click to enlarge

This psychedelic view of Saturn and its rings is a composite made from images taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera using spectral filters sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light centered at 728, 752 and 890 nanometers.
Cassini acquired the view on Dec. 13, 2006 at a distance of approximately 822,000 kilometers (511,000 miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 46 kilometers (28 miles) per pixel.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov .
Credit: JPL/NASA

Though the dirt on the corrector lens may not cause much degradation of image quality, I think I should clean it now. There’s a lot of dust on the surface of the corrector lens and the two eyepieces. The inside of corrector lens has fungus grown on its surface and there are also some fingerprints on the front surface of the corrector lens [Some people have really fast hands. Even if I always tell people not to touch the optics or blow air on them someone manages to do it before I know it.]. I have just got the things I will need to clean the telescope optics.

I finally managed to get isopropyl alcohol (500ml jar) from a science equipments vendor (Sigma Trading Co.) at Pyakhal, Basantapur. It took a whole day searching for a place to find it. I moved from one camera vendor to another (since there are no telescope vendors here). I didn’t miss one camera repair shop in New Road thinking either they sold it or they knew where to find it. Fortunately, I found somebody who knew where to find it though it was tough time to locate the tole where the vendor was located.

To blow off the dust, I needed either an air blower (an ear syringe as written in the telescope catalogue) or a camel hair brush. But did you know a camel hair brush is not made of camel hair? Well, I didn’t know that and kept searching for a true camel hair brush. In fact, Camel is the name of the person who invented it and hairs of ox, goat, squirrel, etc are used in this type of brush. I also paint sometimes because I like painting and I do have a set of brushes. I don’t know if I can use any of them to dust off the optics.

I have also bought a few packs of non perfumed facial tissues from Park ‘n Shop supermarket, Khichapokhari to use with isopropyl alcohol to clean the lenses. As suggested by the maintenance guidelines in the catalog I will have to clean the lenses with the tissues dampened (but not too wet) with 3 parts distilled water to 1 part isopropyl alcohol.

Still, I am yet to clean them.

[We are using the Meade ETX 90 mm donated by Permission To Dream of US. The picture posted here is my favorite one and have used in several places. An old lady is gasping over the Moon she is seeing through the eyepiece while an observation session at Bhrikuti International School, Gaighat in 2006.]