Weekly Meeting 7th Jan & 10th Jan 2021.
Guest speaker Mr. Tillu
Introduction to the night sky was done on 7th January 2021 by the guest speaker Mr. Ashirwad Tillu, who was introduced by Ann Ashwinitai Joshi. Mr. Tillu, an IIT graduate, with a long career in Telecom Industry has a passion for Astronomy. He is the Jt. Secretory of the Khagol Mandal Mumbai.
Mr. Tillu introduced the night sky and what we see with the aid of telescope etc. He talked about the stars and the constellations. He described the life cycle of the stars birth inside massive clouds of dust, active journey where the star burns its fuel and finally when the fuel is depleted,the death of the star. The talk included introduction to the deep sky objects like star clusters, nebulae and the distant galaxies.
For an amateur astronomer, the equipment used is very vital to the study of the sky. Mr. Tillu informed us about the telescope, the various attachments like the mounts, the lenses ad the filters used on the telescope for viewing the objects in the sky. That this lecture was thoroughly enjoyed by the audience was indicated by the number of questions raised by them. Mr. Tillu graciously answered them all getting into a lively discussion with the audience. The program ended with the vote of thanks given by Rtn. Rajas Phadke.
On the 10th of January we enjoyed the part two of the Star trek. Mr. Tillu showed us various sky maps with one showing how the sky would have looked from Falode. He showed the formations of the stars that we would see in the sky. These included Vega, Aldebaran, Capella etc. This was followed by some astounding videos taken by him of the eclipses of the sun, the baily’s beads seen during the annular eclipse. He explained about the precession of earth axis and how the pole star changes periodically. This was followed by amazing videos of the moon showing its oceans, the craters.
The moon video also showed the Aldebaran eclipsed by the moon. The storm on Jupiter and the polar snow cap of mars. The story of the Dogons a tribe in Africa observing the binary star of Sirius was simply amazing. The photos of the comets showed how difficult it is to catch some celestial events like the visit of the comet. The session concluded with the photos of the deep sky objects showing the crab nebula, open clusters of Sirius nebulae showing the birth of the star, the globular cluster of M13 -Hercules. Lastly, the photo of Andromeda galaxy the farthest object seen by naked eye was treat to our eyes.
For many of us a star-studded sky is only a dim memory. To truly see one needs to travel far away from the city. We are truly indebted to Mr. Tillu for showing us glimpses of the sky as well as the vast knowledge he has of the field of astronomy. Surely many enthusiasts now will be studying the skies with passion and purpose.
The star Trek video program of Mr Ashirwad Tillu has been uploaded on our YouTube Channel. Link is given below. Those who missed the program here is your chance to view CLICK HERE