"Fair"y tales :-D.

I've been meaning to write something other than a "birthday countdown" post for what seems like days. But have been busy - hopefully will get to one such post in a couple of days. Meanwhile thought of putting up a couple of pics of the local fair we get here annually (I wrote about it last year). Last year Snugli was a bit too young to enjoy all the bits and pieces and I wrote how it'd be different this year :-D. Well, yeah, it was different as in suddenly we were pushed into the role of spectators and she was the adventurer.

We made it 2 times to the fair this year and this post is mostly about the 1st time (the 2nd time my camera was already poof and the iPhone taken photos don't really count :-p). The first time we did take passes for all of us, because we thought she might create a fuss and its better to ride with her. But she was totally at home :-D.




That was her first ride on her own, ever :) (well, the boy eventually did sit beside her, so on her own as in without us :-\).




We did go on the caterpillar roller coaster ride together (same as last year :-D)..




And the giant wheel (or the Ferris wheel as its called here) later..




I don't really like rides which go round and round, so Sri went with her whenever required (yeah I conveniently dumped the honours on him, hehehee).




And then there was a helicopter ride..




A dinosaur ride..




A bike ride..




The standard merry-go-around..




And a racing car ride which was her "favourite" (she says its so to this day ;-) :-D).





There was also a plane ride (no good pics to speak of) and this dragon roller coaster which she loved.




Phew! I think she enjoyed 12 rides in all. Seeing her enjoyment, I "absolutely" "had-to" take her there once more and hence the 2nd time (I pestered Sri until we went :-D). The 2nd time, we didn't even buy passes for ourselves and bought one for her, thats it. I was ready to run out and get one in case she panicked, but well, our little girl is truly growing up. She went on 12 to 14 rides without even giving us a second glance. I cannot be more proud, believe me, but some part of me was actually sad to see her be so independent. It was difficult for me to let go.

Its not like she's totally independent, but that day brought home the fact that time is slipping away. And no matter how hard we try to hold on, time always gets the better of us. Fortunately or unfortunately, there's nothing you and me can do about it..

P.S: On a totally different note, the Perseid meteor showers are this week, supposedly peaking on Aug 12th night and 13th early morning. I have already seen a couple of meteors in my pursuits of Astrophotography (thats the post I have been meaning to put up, so will be up soon) in the past week and I will be up on Thursday with my camera trying to photograph the pesky things :-D. Oughta be fun :).

I did not know that about astronomy..

Did you know that you can take perfect photos of galaxies, nebulae and many other DSOs (Deep Space Objects) right from the earth? If you knew, kudos to you. Well, I did not.

I am a big fan of astronomical photographs. So much that "astronomy picture of the day" is my daily cup of tea. I always assumed that most of the photos of space were either from the Hubble telescope or some of the special satellites designed to take them. Well, assuming certainly made an ass outtta me :-D.

From the past couple of posts, you know that I was feeling down. I wanted to come back up and one way I thought I could do that was to immerse myself in the activities I love. I thought I would take photography classes or attend a photography workshop, but they don't have them in my town and the private lessons available in a nearby town are atrociously priced :-p. So next, I searched for an astronomy club and found one. While I was exploring through the site, I find the members' photo gallery section and thats when it hits me. Amazing photos taken by people right on earth!

The standard search on Google for more information revealed the term - Astrophotography. Suddenly it was as if the last puzzle piece clicks into place. Felt like a true calling. Felt like, hey thats what I always wanted to do, since I learnt the basics of astronomy (I gave up because of all the math, hehehee). I started reading more and more, getting more and more interested. Don't know how or when really, but I know I want to get into Astrophotography soon.

Its certainly not going to be easy. Astrophotography brings together 2 extreme things in photography and astronomy. It requires the knowledge of operating a high quality telescope (not to mention some knowledge of night sky) and a Digital SLR camera, both of which in turn take quite a bit of mastering. All these don't come very cheap either. Plus from what I have heard, its going to take years to get it right. Just pointing a camera into an eye-piece of a telescope will not get the perfect pics. So its going to be an expensive hobby if it is a hobby and I don't know whether my interest will be strong enough to go on for years and make it into some sort of a career. But right now, I am interested and I am excited.

I have decided to start off initially reading about photography, experimenting and then moving onto buying a digital SLR (which has been one of my all-time wishes). Meanwhile probably will also simultaneously explore buying a beginner's telescope (after going to a couple of meetings of the local astronomy club ofcourse) to learn and explore the possibilities. By then I should know whether I want to pursue this or not ;-). I have several good books on hold already and I can feel the impatience boiling in me ;-) :-D.

I know I am going to have lots of fun figuring it all out :). My only hope in all this is that this will make me look back on the bad phase in my life I have had for the past month fondly as a new beginning :).

Orionid showers!

I have been into astronomy since my 10th standard. Note that its "astronomy" and not "astrology" :-p.

as·tron·o·my
–noun
the science that deals with the material universe beyond the earth's atmosphere.

as·trol·o·gy
–noun
the study that assumes and attempts to interpret the influence of the heavenly bodies on human affairs.

I guess the confusion is pretty common, I have had many people showing me their palms when I have told them that I am into astronomy :-p.

My interest started, as I said, in 10th standard, when we had loads of astronomy in our science syllabus plus a teacher who was crazy about space :). We learnt about constellations, comets, meteors and what not. Plus the teacher told us about a planet in the andromeda galaxy which was like earth. He was so enthusiastic about the subject, that it was so easy to get involved myself. I was so into finding constellations in the night sky :). I was seriously considering a career in astronomy, well, until I found that studying meant lots of maths and not just star-gazing :-D. In fact, even now, one of my biggest wishes is to buy a very powerful telescope and gaze into the sky all I want ;-).

Though the career option never worked out, my interest never lessened. In fact it slowly increased, what with the appearance of Comet Hyakutake the next year and Comet Hale-Bopp in the subsequest one. Hyakutake was lots of fun as it was the first comet I had ever seen and I didn't really know what to expect. After having watched a show in a planetarium, I really thought that a comet was a shiny little line running all over the night sky (I'm not kidding, I was 16 years old and I really believed that!). After reading in the papers about Hyakutake, I actually woke at about 4 AM in the morning just to watch it. I watched and watched but didn't find a single line running over the sky ;-):-D. It was only after gazing for a long time and refering to the map several times in the newspaper did I discover that the comet was actually a blurry looking star-like object (which stood absolutely still :-D). There is movement, but its so small a change that it maybe noticed only the next night. I was so excited that I woke up everyone at home just to show them the comet :). Comet Hale-Bopp was much easier, as I knew what to expect this time.

My interest also extended to meteors and eclipses (I have never seen a total solar eclipse till now :-D). Meteors, normally are difficult to watch out for, as they are just shooting stars in the sky. You might wait a whole night and see nothing. But there are some special times, when the earth's orbit crosses over a comet's path. The comet usually leaves a trail of debris behind and when the earth's atmosphere comes in contact, they suddenly are subjected to earth's gravity and fall as meteors. This makes for a very beautiful view as many shooting starts occur over an hour and its almost like a very slow firework show in the sky. I first came to know of these "showers" through Leonids.

Most of the meteor showers are named after the constellation from which they "seem" to erupt. Leonids, as the name suggest, seem to radiate from constellation Leo and are caused by the debris left by Comet Tempel-Tuttle. They occur every year, but I have watched them about 3 times now. The fun in waking up at a really odd hour in the night, sitting in the cold to watch a meteor shower is something else :-D. Once we were living in an apartment and the Leonids were supposed to be really good that year, so there were about 50-60 people from various apartments gathered on the terrace just to watch them! I remember seeing about 60 meteors that time :-D.

I never knew that there were other showers, I never did bother to research about them till now (sad fact for an amateur astronomer :-p). On Saturday Oct 20th 2007, I was just talking to somebody over phone, when I noticed that Sri had a webpage open about a meteor shower. I was on it in a minute and found out these were Orionids, caused bythe debris of the famous Halley's comet. And the shower was going to peak the very same night (it was predicted that there would be 20 meteors per hour), i.e Oct 21st Sunday early morn at about 5 AM! Look at my luck ;-).

So I decided to be up at around 4:30 AM, but actually was up by 4 AM. Imagine the scene. A 7 month pregnant woman, dressed up in 3 layers of clothes, sitting outside in the cold at 4 AM! I'm crazy, I tell you :-D. It was really chilly, but I pulled up a chair outside in the back yard where I had a good view of the Orion constellation (which is where the Orionids are supposed to emerge from). I saw meteors, but the frequency was very slow. Now there are supposed to be 20 per hour doesn't mean that you get to see everything. Some might be too small for the naked eye while you might miss some when you are not looking at a particular direction. Sri did come out for a while, but he could see no meteors and was off into the warmth of the house in a matter of minutes :-D. Meteor-spotting requires a certain amount of patience and patience pays only sometimes ;-).

I was up for about 2 hours and managed to see about 25 meteors, which was quite ok. Two of them were really bright and left a visual trail! Soon it was going to be dawn and none would be visible anyways. It was a great experience, considering I hadn't been into watching anything for the past 3 years! Well, I guess I had different kind of stars in my eyes :-D. Anyways, Leonids are in November, so if possible (seeing the cold conditions and my conditon), I'll try and make it. There is also a comet in the sky right now (only need to wake up at 4 Am again to watch it), but the sky's been cloudy for a week now. So if and when I am awake, I'll try and catch it :). Meanwhile I actually found a video on Youtube of the Orionid showers (it seems repetitive, but its better than anything I could have photographed myself).

Thanks to YouTube and user briandjin2 for the video.

So long until next time and may the skies watch over you (or may you watch the skies :-D)...