Astrophotography has played a significant role in astronomical discoveries and observations. The use of photography in astronomy dates back to the 19th century. Since then, advancements in technology have allowed for the capture of increasingly detailed and accurate images of celestial objects. Astrophotography has been used to discover and study many different types of objects, including stars, galaxies, nebulae, and planets. Some notable discoveries and observations made using astrophotography include the first photographs of a solar eclipse, the detection of the first known binary star, and ..read more

Is there life on other planets? One of the oldest and most popular question everyone asks whenever a discussion happen around astronomy. Although we generally focus on discussing about possibility of extra-terrestrial intelligent life, finding just ‘life’ or just their traces (like fossils), is more realistic in near future. Discovering alien fossils or martian microbial lifeforms deep inside polar capes of Mars is certainly more probable then Curiosity encountering a bipedal green martian. What is life? Wikipedia defines life as – a characteristic that distinguishes physical entities that hav ..read more

Lucy is a NASA space probe on a twelve-year mission to eight different asteroids, visiting a main belt asteroid as well as seven Jupiter trojans. This time-lapsed animation shows the movements of the inner planets (Mercury, brown; Venus, white; Earth, blue; Mars, red), Jupiter (orange), and the two Trojan swarms (green) during the course of the Lucy mission. Source: NASA What are Trojan asteroids? For any given Two body system in space (both bodies are having mass) orbiting each other, there exist 5 points (called Lagrange points) in their orbital plain where net gravitational pull is zero due ..read more

Notes from Lecture ‘First five years of Gravitational wave astronomy’ by Prof. Archana Pai, Department of Physics, IIT Bombay. World Space Week, Webinar organized by National Space Society(USA)-Mumbai. A broad overview Gravitational-Wave astronomy is an emerging branch of observational astronomy. A distant cousin, we can say, of optical (electromagnetic-wave) astronomy. It’s a young field – just five years old. Since then it has progressed tremendously. Nature of observations and study under gravitational-wave astronomy is quite different. What are gravitational-waves? Gelileo’s Pisa Tower Exp ..read more

We all know most popular planetary models proposed by Kepler, Ptolemy and Copernicus. Indian astronomers also proposed different planetary models. Earliest Indian planetary model was the ‘Sunrise system’ – where day starts at sunrise. Later Aryabhata I (576 AD) proposed a new ‘Midnight system’ – day starting at midnight. It is well known that the Indian astronomers were mainly interested in the successful computations of the longitudes and latitudes of the Sun, Moon and the planets and were not much worried about proposing models of the universe. However, detailed observations suggested some g ..read more

The Perseid meteor is active from – 17 July to 24 August 2021. Perseids shower peak every year in August, and this year it will be at a peak from 12 to 13 August. They are one of the best meteor showers of the year. They are relatively easier to view as they occur in summer nighttime. In peak hours you can catch as many as 100 meteors/hour. That’s 100 wishes every hour! Comet of Origin 109P/Swift-Tuttle Radiant Constellation Perseus Active July 17 – August 24 Peak Activity Meteor Count Up to 100 meteors per hour Meteor Velocity 37 miles (59 km) per second Quick Facts (Source: NAS ..read more

Binoculars are portable, easy to use, no need of any specialized mount, just a fluid head tripod will work fine. Binoculars are great first telescope. They would be more useful then a telescope. Huge astronomical binoculars often have larger aperture than some small refractors. Binoculars are great option for newbies or for those who just want to do some casual stargazing and don’t want to miss out on easily observed astronomical events – a new comet or supernova, conjunctions etc. Prices mentioned will be manually updated. Here is the list of best astronomical binoculars for stargazing: 1. Ce ..read more

In previous article I have given the overview of Sungrazer’s Project. Here I will go through steps involving fetching and processing raw files and as well as discovering and reporting a potential comet. An Overview of Sungrazer Project by Dr. Karl Battams Sungrazer Project: How to discover a Comet? As mentioned in the above article we will be focusing data from SOHO C2 and C3. Here is the workflow: Get the SOHO schedule Visit: https://soho.nascom.nasa.gov/operations/schedule/schedule.html Paste the whole text on excel sheet Should look like this Split data into different cells (by “space ..read more

Misleading visualization results in misrepresenting of information Hubble’s tuning fork diagram, published in 1936 by US astronomer Edwin Hubble, is the earliest method for classification of galaxies. It classifies galaxies based on their apparent structure – into three main categories – elliptical, spiral and barred spiral. Edwin Hubble’s program of observing distant galaxies, during 1920s, collected 100s of high-quality images of galaxies. He devised a classification scheme based on the structural variations in the family of galaxies. At first, in a 1926 paper, he divided galaxies into thr ..read more

As your first astronomical gear, every amateur astronomer will recommend you to first get a pair of binoculars. And with Celestron 20X80 Skymaster, you cannot go wrong. These Binoculars are really well built, and if stored/used properly, it will last for a lifetime. Because of their portability and negligible maintenance many amateur astronomers prefer to use Binoculars instead of a huge Dobsonian. I bought mine 20×80 Skymaster in 2019. So, it’s been two years since then and I think that much time is enough to best judge these huge binoculars. So, here is my review Celestron Skymaster Binocula ..read more