All Night Sky Watch Party at Gavi
Betta
18-19 February 2023
"Before we invented civilization our ancestors lived mainly in the open out under the sky"
- Carl Sagan
[If any reader familiar with this blog is wondering where I have been all these years, I would like to compare myself with Rip Van Winkle, making a re-entry to this chaotic post-covid world, convinced that it is better late than never.]
The Motivation
My surroundings and viewing conditions remained virtually unchanged for the next two decades at least, before being overtaken by the ravages of urban ‘development’. What was once a beautifully green foliage has now been transformed into an ugly concrete jungle. The fact that I now live in the heart of the city, with severe light pollution, though otherwise agreeable, has virtually killed my hobby except when I get the chance to move far away from the city to distant rural locations. Luckily, such occasions have not been too infrequent.
The Opportunity
The Journey
The Night Sky Party. Standing (l to r): Lanchan (local logistic support), Karthik, Manideep, Chiranjeevi B, Rakshitha R Chandran, Krishnamurthy M, Prasad S N and Ilavenil T. Sitting (l to r): Tejasvi and Avinash Vyyuru.
After putting together all the gear, we started in a minibus around noon time on Saturday, 19th February, ate lunch on the way in a roadside hotel near Hunsur and reached a rendezvous point with our local host Lanchan at the foot of the hill well before the expected time. We changed from the minibus to a rugged and rusty four-wheel drive transport vehicle belonging to him, with all our luggage and ourselves (including the minibus driver Nitya Kumar who was eager to share our experiences instead of unnecessarily staying back with his vehicle) squeezed at the rear of it (see the smiling faces below). Being by far the oldest member of the group, I was allowed the luxury of sitting comfortably in the front, next to Lanchan who was also the driver. After some initial confusion about the rout to follow, we reached the top of the hill around 4 PM, right next to a steep ravine conveniently facing west, greeted by a dazzling Sun.
Six visible
smiling faces out of the eight squeezed into the back of the pick-up vehicle
about to start their rough ride uphill
Our immediate priority was to view the sunspots through a telescope. Since we are approaching the peak of a 11-year cycle in solar activity, we knew that these ‘blemishes’ on the solar surface (visible only through optical aid) were extensive both in size and number. Hurriedly we unloaded all our luggage, leaving much of it helter-skelter on the rugged rocky ground. Krishnamurthy and Chiranjeevi unpacked the former’s two telescopes, one a small refracting spotting telescope of 3” aperture and the other a sophisticated Celestron 8” Schmidt-Cassegrain motorized auto-tracking GoTo telescope. Below is a picture of how things appeared about this time:
The Spotty Sun
The Vigil
To while away the time
usefully, Krishnamurthy started engaging the group in a probing dialog,
encouraging each member to narrate key aspects of his/her professional and
personal backgrounds, and their most memorable past experiences. This kept us engaged for a long time,
unmindful of the dreadful weather around us.
As we began to appreciate the reasons that bound us together in our
common endeavor to be part of the vast universe around us that moonless night,
the term unity in diversity started making special sense to us. The narrations of Nitya Kumar, the driver of
the minibus from Mysore, was of a different character altogether from the rest
of the group, both illuminating and hilarious.
I couldn’t help remarking that he appeared to be the happiest person
among us despite his strenuous everyday life and meagre earnings. When my turn
came to narrate my most memorable experience, because of my extensive travels
in recent years, both domestic and foreign, it took me quite some time to zero
in on my tour of Egypt and its remarkably historic sites, including the
stunning Pyramids, the greatest wonder of the ancient world. Aside from my total solar eclipse adventures,
my visit to Japan, especially to once devastated and now prosperous Hiroshima, also
came flooding to my mind.
The Redemption
Around 1:30 AM, Krishnamurthy and myself, tired of the long fruitless wait, decided to grab a bit of sleep and got inside one of the cozy tents, leaving the other two to carry on the vigil. But neither of us actually slept. Barely half an hour thereafter, we were woken up by an excited Chiranjeevi with the news of all-clear and dark skies. From then on, we were to spend the rest of a shortened night exploring the beautiful night sky excitedly, just the way we had hoped. The naked eye view of some of the fabled constellations and star clusters was exhilarating, particularly in the southern skies.
As the first indications of dawn showed up, the excitement started waning and we were waiting only for sunrise to close shop. Below is a picture at dawn, with the camp fire still lit up.
When the surroundings had brightened up sufficiently, we realized we had not planned for a hot cup of morning coffee and therefore had to leave as soon as we could pack up. This too was a time-consuming task.
We were able to leave only after the sun had risen sufficiently high
to brighten up the place much the same way as we had found it on arrival the
evening before.
The Sight
Before leaving Gavi
Betta, our local guide wanted to take us to a few nearby view points from
which the western ghats could be fully appreciated for their rugged beauty. When we alighted at the first of these points,
we were greeted by an incredibly beautiful sight of the early morning Sun
lighting up a vast expanse of silvery white clouds that had enveloped the whole
of the rugged valley below the hill to the west. It was like looking down through
the windows in a high-flying aircraft and sometimes being lucky enough to look at
a vast sea of puffy brightly sunlit clouds, something I have often experienced.
Here is a picture showing the dense
cloud formation on the left even as I (right foreground) seem to be looking in
the wrong direction - at the Sun!
The following picture shows an unobstructed view of the great cloud formation with a sharp peak jutting up and out of it!
Somewhat reluctantly, we got back into the pick-up vehicle, and Lanchan started driving for the next view point. And then suddenly we ran into a totally unexpected problem that became very difficult to manage, and delayed our departure by at least three long hours. After just a few meters of drive, the vehicle stopped, went silent and would not restart, no matter what Lanchan did with his rich experience of driving in such rugged terrain behind him. He tried every trick in the book, but to no avail. The vehicle simply wouldn’t restart! At last, he summoned a similar vehicle traveling nearby, got hold of a long thick rope, tied the front of his vehicle to the rear of the guest vehicle which pulled the errant vehicle a short distance slightly downhill in the hope that it would cough up and come alive. Sadly, the errant vehicle did not budge one bit.
After repeated attempts that led nobody anywhere, Lanchan realized it was time to seek his father’s expert intervention. The even more experienced father drove uphill in a similar hired vehicle (costing us more money as well as time) along with a seasoned helper, arrived at the place we were all stranded in (most of us under the shade of nearby trees) and tried his own bag of diverse tricks to get the truant vehicle started. Almost an entire hour passed by before he finally succeeded, after the helper had repeatedly sucked out several mouthfuls of the diesel fuel that was in the engine. We left Gavi Betta in an altogether different frame of mind, eager to get back into our minibus and reach a hotel or restaurant as quickly as possible for a long-delayed breakfast, with no thought at all for the elusive early morning hot cup of coffee. In course of time, we returned to the base camp where the minibus had been parked overnight unattended, the ten of us now divided more comfortably between two similar vehicles for the downhill journey.
The Return
In conclusion, the parting message from this all-night sky watch party is that we need many more such parties, and more frequently too, to keep our hobby alive and kicking.
By the way, one can understand the necessity for street lights to illuminate streets, but not for the same lights to brighten up the night sky as well! A huge amount of energy can be saved by not doing so, apart from promoting night sky watching as a more agreeable urban hobby.
Postscript
Ilavenil provided me with some of her random thoughts on the sky watch trip. I considered incorporating them in my write-up, but found her expression too distinctive to do sufficient justice. Instead, I am appending the following excerpts here:
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