Shooting Star Trip 2018
by Swetha Ayyapath | Dec 2018
I am sure most of you have heard of the phenomenon of meteor showers and have probably also seen some random posts about meteor showers go viral, letting you know it happens on a particular date. But did you know most of these meteor showers are an annual phenomenon and happen on a fixed date every year? And each of these different meteor showers have their own name dependent on the constellations they originate from? And yes they generally originate from a particular constellation and are not just random shooting stars flying all over the sky, though it seems that way. And yes if it is your lucky day you could witness a shooting star on any other day as well in a clear dark sky, but do double check to make sure it isn’t an aeroplane or maybe a firefly even. Even I didn’t know most of these facts before I went to witness the recent meteor showers, ‘the geminid meteor shower’ on the night of 14th December when I went along with the Outdoor Being group of Pondicherry.
Stargazing is much more than just looking up
Stargazing is much more than just lying down and looking up into the sky though just doing that is beautiful in itself. There is so much to learn for a lifetime about the stars that we see and the lights they produce and the universe they are a part of. It is also amazing to picture their patterns. It is true when they say one true experience of stargazing is enough to get you hooked to it for a lifetime. Have you ever just sat down, looked at the stars and thought or realized rather that the stars have actually been a constant for ages in a world where everything seems to be changing on a daily basis. Isn’t it just amazing to think about it that our ancestors looked at the same stars that we are looking at today and when we can’t even recognize the streets we lived in five years ago, the North Star is still up there, just where our forefathers saw it, guiding the lost souls through the sea. More than all that, the intensity of the night sky with millions of stars spread all around, we get a sense of our place on Earth and how minute we are in comparison to everything and yet how we, the tiny minute human, are set out to make all the difference in the world.
Now you must be wondering ‘its just stars’. What makes me make such big deal out of them? Well I was one among you, not really thinking of it any more beyond them as some shiny dots or twinkling diamonds in the sky. But then I decided to go on the ‘Shooting Star Trip’ organized by the Outdoor Being in Pondicherry and somehow they made the twinkling diamonds much more than just that. So what exactly happened in that trip you ask? The travel enthusiasts who have come together to form Outdoor Being and organize similar nature walks and stargazing trips had planned an entire night for all 80 of us who had come together to witness the meteor shower. The night started with a nice drive of almost 20 kms to the venue which was away from the city and free of all light pollution. After reaching the venue and having dinner, we all moved to a clearing where we could lie down, relax and just stare up into the sky. But before that, the team was nice enough to introduce themselves and what is the drive for them to do what they are doing. Then they had brought in an external resource person, Balaji who had a personal interest and passion for astronomy and was an expert of sorts, to give us information about the stars, to tell us where these meteors are coming from, what they are and the various constellations. And that is what made us see the actual patterns in the sky and not just random dots scattered all over. They also had arranged for a telescope and let us view the moon through it, bringing it all a tad bit closer to us. Once the presentations were done all of us made ourselves comfortable and got all set to count the shooting stars that we were to witness till dawn. Spotting the shooting stars were both exciting and surreal and every time a star flew in the sky, the crowd would ‘whoo’ and anyone who missed it would stare at the sky without moving, not even blinking, not wanting to miss another one of the shooting star, of the nature’s master show.
Counting not stars but shooting stars or meteors rather, on a chilly night till dawn, surrounded by my best of friends and some amazing other people is something I can check off my bucket list, thanks to the Outdoor Being who probably without realizing have been helping a lot of people check off things off their personal bucket lists.
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