A Leap into the Stars

As I sit on the swing at my home in Bangalore and chat with my brother, he tells me about a star gazing event his friends plan to visit near Mumbai. I have a sudden jump in my stomach, going to an astronomy camp is something I always wanted to do (still hoping to visit the Indian Astronomical Observatory someday).

I wonder what has been stopping me from attending one so far, but this time, I decided to get out of my head and just go for one. I grab my phone and quickly start looking for such camps near Bangalore.

Five minutes into the search, I came across RiSa Astronomy, and the stars aligned, they had an event coming up with registrations still open. It was a two-day event at a remote place in Tamil Nadu. I quickly message Anish (he along with his wife and two daughters runs the astronomy camps at RiSa) gathering all the details and registering for the event.

I see the registration successful screen on my phone, and then I start wondering, wait I will be going alone with 40 other strangers, how will I manage all of this? But it was time to take the leap of faith and get out of my head.

Fast forward to Friday, I got the details of the driver who will be driving me to the farm in Tamil Nadu, I saw the name and thankfully I had traveled with him before, the trip was to a good start.

I packed my bag and the short trip to witness the stars had officially started.

On the way to the farm, I stopped for a quick stop to have a hot plate of Rava Dosa. As the waiter served the dosa, I wondered, if it was a bad decision to go alone, it was my first time going alone with a group of strangers to a place where there was going to be no network, maybe it was time to take a U-turn and go back home. But it was time to just go with the flow.

The camp was going to start at 3, but I didn’t want to take a chance of missing any part of it and considering the worst-case scenario of things going wrong on the way, I reached there at 1. The road on the way was covered with mountains on both sides and clear skies.

As I reached the farm, I said bye to the driver and asked him to pick me up tomorrow. I was greeted by the farm owner, who showed me the tents where we were all going to stay for the night. He assigned me my tent and the excitement in me pumped up. It was my first time staying in a tent.

Since I had two hours before the camp started, I had all the time to roam around and explore the farm. I went to their cafe where I was greeted by two cute ducks and a few rabbits. The view from there was beautiful. I found a nice cozy spot, facing the view, and started reading the book I carried. After some time, I got bored and went to explore the farm. It was a calm and quiet place in the middle of nowhere with no network.

As the clock struck 3, I was waiting with all my excitement for the camp to start and see the people who would be attending it, I finally met Lakshmi, who was our instructor for the camp.

I saw her set up the hydrogen telescope and it was finally time to view the Sun. As I slowly went near the telescope and peeked my eyes near the lens, there it was, a huge ball of yellow-reddish light, it looked massive.

One by one everyone took turns in watching the Sun and settling in their tents. It was now time for the astronomy theory session.

We were given a sheet, showing the alignment of stars, and which satellites would cross Denkannikotai which may be visible to us. This was later followed by Laxmi explaining to us how to measure the altitudes with our hands to get the position of the satellite and what Azimuth was.

Riddhi then came in and explained the Big Bang to us, we went on discussing black holes and, the difference between meteorites, meteors, and meteoroids.

This is when things got more interesting, they had collected some meteorites from around the world and we had the chance to see them. They explained how one could determine which meteorite it was based on the element composition. These are the meteorites that we saw, the Chelyabinsk meteor (this one looked like silicon) and Gebel Camil (a reptile skin-like texture but was a huge mass of Iron and magnetic).

We ended the theory session with some trivia and a cup of chai and pakoda and now it was time was a short hike to a nearby peak to view the sunset.

As we were about to start the hike, I met Aishwarya, she was here with her cousin from Bangalore. Our conversation somehow started with discussing books where I told her about my favorite books and that’s when she told me how she started a library 16 years back, her experience running it, and how she still had some old classics with her (even though the library was now closed). As soon as she told me she ran a library, in my mind the first instinct was (wow, that’s like a dream). She became my hike buddy and both of us slowly started the walk towards the peak.

With the sun almost starting to set in the west, as we crossed farmlands, I saw grass, the ones I did not witness in real life, the actual light green color. We passed through a small house with cows outside and a huge tamarind tree.

So far, the trail had been easy with some huge rocks in the middle. The next stretch was a narrow steep path with grass on both ends followed by a steep massive rock to cross. As we reached the steep path, I slowly started seeing people fade ahead. Aishwarya was ahead of me and kept motivating me as I took small breaks.

We finally reached the peak and the view was amazing. We could see our tents, the green grass we just crossed, and the sun? that was just beautiful.

I was happy about just reaching the top, even though it was a relatively easy one, finally this time no one had to drag me to the top. As a small token to remember this hike forever, I picked up a few stones from the peak and carefully kept them in my small bag.

As I sat on the corner of the mountain, with the view of the sun setting, I was happy that I took the leap of faith and came here. It was only 4 hours into the camp and I was already feeling so content. After soaking in the view for half an hour, it was time to climb down, this one felt easy. As I climbed down, I was constantly juggling between keeping my phone intact and making sure I did not lose the stones.

The next part was now to view the planets. We went to the observatory deck where we were greeted by the huge telescope.

As it started getting darker, we also turned off all the lights of the farm, it was pitch dark, and we could see some of the things with our naked eyes like the reddish tint of Mars, the Orion, and wait the best part? We saw satellites moving in the sky. We quickly took the sheets out that were given at the start of the camp and started guessing which satellite it was.

If I had to describe how the satellites looked, it would be one word, it went like ZOOOP.

Tent by tent we took our turns in viewing the planets. We saw Saturn, looking pretty with its rings as usual, followed by Mars which looked like a red ball, Jupiter, Venus, and finally Uranus which was blue.

As I looked through the telescope at the planets, it struck me how small I was in comparison to the vast universe around me. The sheer size of Saturn’s rings, the red hue of Mars, and the tiny, distant glow of Uranus — it all felt so distant, yet in a way, it connected to something much larger. It made me realize how fleeting our moments are in the grand scheme of things. It was humbling and awe-inspiring all at once.

While we viewed through the telescope, we saw the Canis Major, and Canis Minor (hunting dogs of Orion), tried locating the pole star, and learned about the mythological rivalry between Scorpius and Orion, which is why they appear on opposite sides of the sky at different times. We also spotted Betelgeuse (the yellow-orange star) Rigel (the blue star), and the constellation of Taurus.

Another interesting thing that Lakshmi told us about was why the Sun sign was called as Sun sign. The Sun shines in different constellations during the time of the year, and based on the time of the month you were born, and the constellation in which the sun shines, that becomes your Zodiac/Sun-sign.

We were also told that it is not advisable to use white light when trying to see the stars since once your eyes are exposed to white light, it takes about 20 minutes for them to adjust and become accustomed to viewing the sky again.

No picture could do justice to the view, but here’s one that I was able to capture.

We now dispersed for dinner where we were treated to some homely food at the cafe.

I quickly wrapped my dinner and went back to the observatory deck where it was now time to view the Orion Nebula (a region where new stars are being born. It's where gravity causes the material to collapse and form new stars). While the telescope was adjusted to point to the Nebulla, we were explained how the stars that we will just view, in terms of human age, are just 3 days old!

As the night unfolded, the view kept getting mesmerizing. We discussed about Milky Way and the right regions and places to witness it. We also saw how the stars moved towards the west from the time when we saw them before dinner.

It was now time to return to our tents since we had to wake up at 4 to witness the Lunar objects and Moon.

It was my first time staying in a tent, I quickly settled it with my sleeping bag and hoped to not face any insects or snakes. It was a peaceful night.

As the dawn crept in at 4 AM, I quickly went out of my tent towards the observatory deck, where I witnessed the moon. Since there was no one there yet, I went for a walk, and when I returned the moon was gone, completely hidden by the fog and the clouds. We waited for some time but there were no chances of it being seen since the fog kept getting intense.

We had now almost reached the end of the camp. The only thing left now was a tractor ride to a nearby temple on the hill and witnessing the sun again with the hydrogen telescope.

We quickly had our morning tea and tried squishing in the tractor. We crossed muddy trails, and a dam and saw some local villagers going to their farms. As we reached the temple, we explored the hill for some time, soaked in the morning sun, and took the way back. We witnessed the morning mist covering the dam water and the sun shining brightly in all its glory!

At breakfast, we had some hot Thatte idlis and Vadas, post which it was time for the final ride to the observatory deck.

The sun was bright up and the fog had almost cleared, and as I peaked through the telescope, I witnessed the filaments of the sun and a hot ball of red color coming straight at you.

After saying bye to Aishwarya and some other folks I met at the camp, soaking the view from the cafe, and grabbing my stuff from the tent, waited for my car to arrive.

On the way back, I narrated my experience to the driver who was eager to know why I came here alone and what was so special about it. While I wasn’t able to explain it to him while we were going to the farm, I for sure had a good enough answer for the question now when we returned home.

It was two days of pure bliss. It made me realise that sometimes getting out of your comfort zone and exploring the unknown can give you experiences you never expected. Sometimes the best experiences happen when you let go of expectations and just go with the flow.

As I sit on the swing today writing the blog, where the idea of going to an astronomy camp originally popped up in my head, I can just say one thing, I can’t wait to go for another astronomy camp!