Events

Occultation of Mars – May10, 2008 : click here for more.....

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On October 25^th the sky gazers were in for a surprise! A comet had suddenly brightened in the north east in the constellation of Perseus.

The comet is still moving within the boundaries of the constellation of Perseus. At sunset the constellation is low in the North East. By about 10:30 it attains a comfortable elevation. The comet is expected to remain bright for another fortnight, assuming that it is behaving the same way as it did in 1896. Thus any evening when it is clear scan the North East part of the sky. A fuzzy patch next to a fairly bright star is the comet; even through the telescope it looks like a patch with no impressive tail.

At last we have a comet visible without telescopes!


Figure shows the location of the comet at about 7:00 pm in the first week of November; the W shape is Cassieopea and the star cluster in the east is Pleiades

The photogrpah is by Deepak Dembla with a Nikon camera
 

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Eclipse at Sunrise - Pictures by Dr V Nagaraj, Mysore.
Sequence of lunar eclipse on 4th March 2007

Lunar eclipse of 7/8 September 2006
- sequence obtained from Mysore by Dr Nagaraj

 

"Photographs by Shashank taken from Hosahalli about 50 kms North of Bangalore with a Pentax f/2 piggyback on Celestron 4.5" manual tracking 400ASA Sagittarius (5 minutes) and Perseus (30 seconds)"

"Photographs by Shashank taken from Hosahalli about 50 kms North of Bangalore with a Pentax f/2 piggyback on Celestron 4.5" manual tracking 400ASA Sagittarius (5 minutes) and Perseus (30 seconds)"


The Summer solstice and a simple experiment
The vertical sundial in the park was used to demonstrate the identification of the summer solstice on June21st. The vertical sundial consists of a slit on a metallic sheet; the sunlight peeping through the slot sweeps across the dial indicating the time.

Two pendulums were suspended from the ends of the slot so that they barely touch the ground. On 26th April it was noted that the shadow of the shadow of bobs coincided with the base. On 21st June, the shadow had shifted to South. The length of the shadow of the slot was 56cm. The length of the pendulum was 76 cm. Therefore the sun was at 36.4 degrees from the zenith on June 21st. This gives the latitude of Bangalore as 12.9 degrees. On April 26th the sun’s declination was exactly 13 degrees, which is equal to the latitude. Hence the shadow was exactly coinciding with the base. The figures indicate the shadows of the pendulums on these dates

click on the image for an enlarged view

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Waning phase of Venus captured by Dr. Nagaraj from Mysore

Solar Eclipse

Clouds marred the view of the solar eclipse; however, through the clouds these photos were taken; the projected image from the Coude refractor at the Planetarium; the other from Mysore by Dr Nagaraj

Pleiades peeping out behind the moon on 22nd September 2005 Photos by Dr V Nagaraj, Mysore, Camera: Nikon Shutter Speed: 2 sec/ 400 ASA at f/4.9

"Moon and Jupiter on 22nd April 2005 photo by Dr V Nagarj, Mysore"

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