Amateur Astronomy,Infinite Entertainment

Andromeda Galaxy

When I was young I got hold of a book called ‘Children’s Encyclopedia’. One of the chapters , which dealt with cosmos, deeply interested me. I decided I will know more about this when I grow up.

 In 1986 there was some excitement because Halley’s comet returned after 76 years. A friend called me up and asked me to come to Rajabajar science college saying a telescope was being set up to view the comet. I was excited. When I arrived there I saw a pipe like object standing .I later knew it was a 3˝ refractor telescope. Although we tried a lot to locate Halley’s comet that night we did not find it because nobody had a clue where to look at the sky. However that day I had the opportunity to view Saturn and Jupiter. And that view became etched in my mind forever. I have never seen anything as fascinating as Saturn’s ring ever before. Also when we looked at a star in the constellation of Great Bear we found it to be a double star. I later knew it was actually an optically double star.

Anyway experience of that night was unforgettable. A strange  kind of feverish fascination got hold of me. I decided I must buy a telescope. I also started sky watching regularly. At night I would go up to the terrace and spend sleepless nights observing the sky. I began to know the star constellations. After sometime I knew the sky by heart.

At this point of time I met a man who built telescopes . I do not know whether at that time anybody else made telescopes at Kolkata. Anyway , I got a 3˝ refractor made by him.

With a lot of excitement I got up to the terrace with my new telescope. I hoped to see so many things. Alas, I saw nothing but blackness. Slowly, after a lot of hard work  I learned how to watch sky through a telescope. Some time later I joined Calcutta amateur astronomers club. There we had a 8˝ Newtonian. I began to see so many things. Like gaseous nebulae where new stars were born. Open clusters of hundreds of stars. Globular clusters, shaped like a ball where thousands of stars are at close proximity.

I saw Andromeda galaxy. It is a spiral shaped disk which you can see during October November . Galaxy is something where billions of stars are conglomerated .Our own galaxy, Milkyway contains 100 billion stars. Andromeda is one and half time bigger than Milkyway. So more or less 150 billion stars are there in Andromeda. It is 2.2 million light years away from us. It means light takes 2.2 million years to reach us from there. So whatever we are seeing of Andromeda has happened 2.2 million years ago. In our galaxy Milky way alone there are more or less 1 million sun like stars.

 Each day scientists are finding new planetary systems in our galaxy. So we may well imagine there so many planets like our mother earth. And that means so many other planets containing creatures like us, humans. Now think of Andromeda and billions of other galaxies. The mind boggles.

I do not have that old 3” refractor anymore. Instead I am working with a new Celestron Nexstar SE.

This article is already quite long .However I feel it is no less entertaining than Hollywood or Bollywood. What do you think?