Marsha – The Spacewoman

Marsha Ivins

Space enthusiasts are always curious about the life of astronauts, international space station (ISS) and the space shuttles. I felt lucky by attending public talk “55 Days in Space: The Story of an American Astronaut” arranged by IUCAA, Pune, in collaboration with the American Centre, Mumbai. Speaker was veteran astronaut Marsha Ivins, talked about her 36 years of experience in the field of aerospace, working at NASA’s Johnson space station. She travelled to space using space shuttles like Columbia, Atlantis to carry out ambitious work like satellite deployment, experimenting with microgravity, docking with Russian space station Mir and building ISS. During 1990 to 2001 she flew five times and has logged over 1318 hours in space! (Whereas on Wikipedia page its 55d 21h 48m)

Ms. Ivins started her talk with the history of human space flights.

Better I summarize it in points.

• US started with Mercury and Gemini in 60s, followed by numerous moon missions.
• Then NASA started space shuttle program which took US at different level in space race.
• In each slide Marsha presented breathtaking photographs and videos showing the internal structure of ISS and how the earth looks from the space.
• US send packet food which contain no air and water contents whereas Russia send canned food. Peanut butter and honey is consumed largely. Salt and pepper are also in liquid form. When cargo vehicle reaches ISS, astronauts get fresh vegetables. It was funny to see how astronauts enjoy playing with food and juices.
• All trash is collected and packed, sent back to the earth and there no way to throw it out of ISS.
• While working astronauts on board need to fix themselves to the surface of ISS, so everywhere straps are provided on the floor and walls as well. Velcro tapes are wide used to avoid things from floating.
• Prolong living in no gravity, human muscles get weak, there might be loss of bone mass. So astronauts have to exercise daily for 2 hours. There are various ‘special’ machines on board like weightlifting, treadmill.
• Most interestingly, astronaut bath with Ball of water. Yes, ball of water! They first clean the body with ball of water then apply soap and again use ball of water to clean.
• They use toothpaste which can be swallowed. Now there is special machine used to haircut. There are chambers to sleep or they use sleeping bags which has facility to support the neck.
• Toilet on board is designed by Russia is being used since last 30 years!
• Astronauts can carry their own musical instruments, ipods, and books to ISS. They have facility of emails, video conferencing, and telephone. They can contact with family anytime they want.
• As ISS rotates around the earth 15times with speed of 28000km/hr they don’t have day/night like earth instead they follow schedule based on 24hours.

One thing Ms. Ivins told touched me. She stated that when earth is viewed from space, countries do not have borders like we see on the map. It is one whole beautiful planet. Then she showed some photographs of India and Mumbai taken from ISS!

Marsha Ivins experiencing weightlessness during STS-98. Credit : Wikipedia

Ms. Ivins answered many questions from audience. She explained advantages of robots in space flights over man. Sixty-one years old Marsha also added “Six months of mars rovers did work which humans could have finished in 10 minutes. Human space flights will surely be efficient but too much risky and expensive”. Life in space is never boring; one has to be expert in multitasking and alert every time. In last few minutes she talked about the use of space suit during spacewalk, electricity generation on ISS, health issues when astronauts come back on the earth, experiments  on ‘crystal protein growth’, combustion etc. she also added that astronauts are operators, they trained by original researchers to do such experiments.

Talking about the future Ms. Ivins mentioned upcoming commercial projects. She said, “We should go back to the moon and build a base there, start developing/repairing technological facility. Then we can go to Mars which is 3 years long mission and we have got to learn how to take care of ourselves without coming back to home. If we develop rockets which are faster than today’s then only we can explore other planets in our solar system. Today’s technology won’t take man that far. Beyond our solar system is Milkyway and other various galaxies”.

Media also covered Marsha’s visit to India. Couple of local newspapers got ‘exclusive’ interview! In that she talked little bit about her personal life and contribution of women in space exploration, India’s potential of space programs, space tourism, political issues and lot more.

For India it is crucial time to think, as manned mission is already setback. Fix the political issues and come up with new solution for betterment of citizens of India.

The Artist

द आर्टिस्ट

ब्लॅक अ‍ॅंड व्हाईट फिल्म बघायला मजा येतेच पण जर तो मूकपट असेल तर.., प्लस तो फ्रेंच लोकांनी बनविला असेल तर, क्या बात हे!

NFAI येथे  यावेळेस “ढीगाने” नामांकने कमावलेला आणि पुरस्कार जिंकलेला ’द आर्टिस्ट’ बघायाला मिळाला.

तसे पाहायला गेलं तर गोष्ट वेगळी आहे; तरीही साधी, सोपी आणि भारतीय सिनेमा बघणार्‍यांना तर लगेच अंदाज लावता येण्यासरखी आहे. शॉर्टमधे सांगायचे तर – गोष्ट आहे एका कलाकराची जो हॉलिवूडमधे मूकपटांत नट म्हणून काम करत असतो. १९३० च्या काळात चित्रपट निर्मितीत होणार्‍या बदलांमुळे त्याची घुसमट होते आणि त्यातून बाहेर पडायाला त्याची प्रेमिका कशी मदत करते हे रंजकपणे, विनोदी अंगाने मांडले आहे.

सिनेमाची सुरुवातच होते ती ’जॉर्ज व्हॅलेंटाइन’ (Jean Dujardin) प्रमुख भुमिकेत असलेल्या एका मूकपटाच्या स्क्रिनींगने (खरच मजेशीर दृश्ये आहेत). नंतर जॉर्ज एके ठिकाणी फोटोग्राफर लोकांना ’पोज’ देत उभा असतो. तेवढ्यात चाहत्यांच्या गर्दीतून एक तरुणी- ’पेपी मिलर’ (Bérénice Bejo) चुकुन त्याच्या पुढ्यात येते. दुसर्‍या दिवशी एका वर्तमानपत्राच्या पहिल्या पानावर त्या दोघांचे फोटो येतात. त्यानंतर पेपी Extras साठी ऑडीशन द्यायला जाते, त्याठिकाणी डांसर म्हणून तिची निवड होते. किनोग्राफ नावाच्या स्टुडीओत जॉर्ज आणि पेपीची भेट होते. जॉर्ज पेपीला काम देण्यासाठी स्टुडीओच्या मालकाला गळ घालतो.  पेपीची एक वेगळी ओळख असावी म्हणून जॉर्ज तिच्या गालावर तीळ काढतो. (ते तीळ ती कायम सांभाळते) पेपी जरी extra असली तरी जॉर्जला तिच्यासोबत असलेल्या scene ला बर्‍याचदा ’रीटेक’ द्यावे लागतात. कदाचित ह्याच काळात त्यांचे सूर जूळतात. पेपीला पुढे चांगली कामे मिळ्तात.

काही वर्षांनी कीनोग्राफ स्टुडीओ मूकपटांची निर्मिती बंद करून बोलपट बनविण्यास सुरुवात करतात. जॉर्जला बोलपटांची कल्पना आवडत नाही. तो स्वतंत्रपणे एका मूकपटाची निर्मिती करण्यास सुरुवात करतो. संपूर्ण कमाई त्यात लावतो. पेपी मुख्य भुमिकेत असलेला बोलपट आणि स्वत: मुख्य भुमिकेत असलेला जॉर्जचा मूकपट एकाच दिवशी प्रदर्शीत होतो. अर्थात जॉर्जचा मूकपट चालत नाही. १९२९ ला स्टॉक मार्केट कोसळते आणि जॉर्जचे दिवाळे निघते. त्याची बायको त्याला सोडून जाते. जॉर्ज त्याच्या नोकरासोबत एका छोट्या घरात रहायला जातो.

जॉर्जच्या वस्तूंचा लिलाव होतो. तो नोकराला कामावरून काढून टाकतो (बघण्यासारखा scene) . पेपीचे बरेच बोलपट गाजतात. जॉर्ज दारू-सिगारेटच्या आहारी जातो. तो पेपीचा एक बोलपट बघतो. तिथे खुप हसतोही. घरी दु:खी, चिडलेल्या अवस्थेत तो त्याच्याजवळ्च्या सर्व फिल्मच्या रीळ जाळतो. आग चांगलीच पेट घेते आणि जॉर्ज धुरामुळे बेशुद्ध पडतो. त्याचा कुत्रा पोलिसाला बोलावतो आणि त्याचा जीव वाचवितो. पेपीला ही बातमी कळाल्यावर ती जॉर्जला स्वता:च्या घरी नेते.

आता पेपी कीनोग्राफ स्टुडीओच्या मालकाला धमकी देते त्याने जॉर्जला काम द्यावे नाहीतर, तीसुद्धा काम करनार नाही. (विनोदी scene)

इकडे जॉर्जला कळते की लिलावातील सर्व वस्तू पेपीने विकत घेतल्या.. उद्वीग्न मनस्थितीत तो स्वत:च्या घरी जतो आणि आत्महत्येचा प्रयत्न करतो. पेपी तेथे पोहचून त्याला थांबविते. ते दोघे मिळून शूटींगसाठी नाचतात. येथे दोन डायलॉग येतात आणि सिनेमा संपतो.

अनेक दृश्ये स्मरणात राहतात.

कुत्र्याच्या अफलातून करमती आहेत. जॉर्जला एक स्वप्न पडते ते खुप भारी दाखवले आहे. एका दृश्यात जॉर्ज दारु पिताना दाखवला आहे, तो कॅमेराचा अ‍ॅंगल भारी आहे. दुसर्‍या एका दृश्यात जॉर्जची प्रोजेक्टरवरची सावली…

२२FPS असल्यामुळे त्याकाळचा फीलसुद्धा छान येतो.

खुप पोझिटीव्ह गोष्टी आहेत या सिनेमात.

हा सिनेमा बर्‍याच गोष्टी “न बोलता” दाखवतो.

कलाकारचे आयुष्य दाखवतो.. नशीब, चढ-उतार दाखवतो. पाळीव प्राण्याचे माणसावरील प्रेम, नोकराचे मालकारील प्रेम, केलेल्या मदतीची कृतज्ञता ठेववी. सर्वात महत्वाचे शिकवतो – बदलाला सामोरे जावेच लागते.

Conference on Patinformatics for Research and Business Planning

Every engineer has a dream to patent his invention. Keeping that in mind I attended couple of sessions on intellectual properties a year back.  There I come to know that one should be intelligent to invent and pioneer new technology which is patentable and smart enough to grab a patent on it. Yes, smart! Already there lots, lots of patents granted. So to show the invention as a novel, patent documents are drafted in different way. This in turn makes difficult for technologists to understand existing patent documents. So “Patent Analyst” performs patent and non-patent literature searches to determine the patentability of an invention. To search, there are special databases available and most of them provide paid services.

To take overview of this field and to see if it can be career option of graduate engineers, I attended this conference organized by SIS and URDIP. Although I couldn’t understand many of the things in the workshop and conference because may be a little experience was pre-requisite, but I enjoyed the conference.

Workshops

• Patent landscaping using STN AnaVist – Mr. Paul Peters demonstrated various ways to analyze the search results from science literature and patent documents. The attractive feature was visualization patterns of search results and trends in research. There are many ways to represent the results and carrying processes on it.
• Patent searching in SciFinder – SciFinder covers scientific publications as well as patents in the field of chemistry, biotechnology, life sciences, and chemical/bio engineering, polymers, material sciences. Awesome feature of this service is user can literally draw the molecular structure and search patents related to it!
• PatBase – the demo showed search and display features of this full text based database.
• iNSIGHT Pro – demonstration covered various tools which are used to conduct advanced patent analysis. I like the feature of categorizing the patent data sets which helps in analyzing patents when same patents come in different classes.

Conference

Inaugural Lecture was by Mr. Paul Peters, Director, CAS, Europe.

He compared Indian patents with other emerging markets. In one of slides of his presentation statistics were like this

Contribution of Academia in Patents

India = 1.6%

Korea = 6%

China = 17.6%

Key-Note address was by Dr. Prabhuddha Gangulay talked about his projects involving students. This was followed by Presidential address by Dr. Raghunath Mashelkar.

(Audio clip of Dr. Mashekar’s speech. Low Quality)

Next two days experts from industries delivered presentations on research and business strategies. Most of the speakers were having PhD in some field and additionally they were either patent agents or worked in the field of patent analysis for quite long time. To name a few speakers were from Thomson Reuters, Phillips, Teaxs Instruments, Infosys, Nation Chemical Laboratory India, Eaton technologies, KPIT Pune, Reliance Industries and CSIR-URDIP.

One example given by Mr. Dawn Jos of Texas Instruments on how difficult language is used while drafting a patent and so searching is very challenging task for patent analyst – A glass is half filled with water. A patent attorney writes it as – Liquid H2O bisects the cylindrical open vessel.

To sum up my experience of conference -

It seems industries in India are now considering the importance of Intellectual properties so, in upcoming days business strategies will have influence of research planning. Also I think, start-ups will rise to new heights in business on the basis of patents.

Delhi

Tadoba – ताडोबा

Jungle safari – I never thought or planned that I would go in jungle and see, experience wildlife closely. Visit to ‘Tadoba’ is one of the unexpected and successful trips I have ever done! And it was very unsure till I entered the reserve.

Sambar. Photo by Onkar Asalekar

Without booking the tickets we travelled to Tadoba from Anandwan in the afternoon. Fortunately we reached on time at Khadsangi Gate from where only 6 vehicles are allowed to enter. Mr. Vikas Chaudhary our guide took us inside and told us so much information about Tiger, other animals and so many thrilling experiences since he started working there in 1998. Vikas said “Long back a man named Taru had fight with tiger and got killed so now the name is Tadoba and Andhari is name of watercourse in the jungle. Complete name of the sanctuary is Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve. Area is about 625 square kilometers, 667 types of plants.” He told various stats of animals, plants, birds in the reserve. Most interesting figure was – 70 Tigers!!

spotted deer. Photo by Meghana Joshi

I never went to jungle or sanctuary before for bird watching. I saw, heard many birds among which I could only recognize ducks in ponds and peacock. Guide showed us eagle, Kingfisher. There were so many spotted deer, Sambar playing on grass, open spaces and disappeared as soon as they hear any sound of vehicles. I watched neelgai, jungle cats, langurs, wild pigs. Guide Vikas had amazing listening capability and great eyesight. In moving vehicle, Vikas could name animal or bird and also tell its location by just listening and spot it in dense bushes. After wandering for more than 1hour we waited at one place to see Tiger.

Divine silence was getting more charismatic occasionally by chirping of birds, sounds of animals. I looked around… numerous wildlife photographers with top-class cameras stood still… to freeze the frame and capture that beauty of real nature. What photographers were doing? Just Freezing visuals? But being human species how can we carry that undisturbed silence with us? How can we carry with us those principles, regulations jungles are following without fail even though man left jungles thousands of years back. Those clean water lakes, huge banyan trees, and dense bamboo trees, sunshine and shadows… how we are going to keep all these things close to us and live along with it?

Suddenly Guide told driver to move vehicle and took us near pond.

Voila!!! Tiger…

अस्ताला जाणार्‍या सूर्याच्या किरणांनी तळं उजळून निघाले होते. तो पिवळ्या-सोनेरी रंगाचा जंगलाचा राजा.. वाघ पाण्यातून बाहेर आला. तसा माझ्यापासून बराच लांब होता खरा पण त्याला पाहताच हृदयाचा ठोका नक्कीच चुकला. वाघ पाण्यातून बाहेर पडल्याक्षणी कॅमेरे वाजू लागले, बघणारे ’आह भरु’ लागले. वाघाने त्याच्यापासून दूर तळ्याच्या दुसर्‍या काठी असलेल्या आमच्या वाहनांच्या घोळक्याकडे क्षणभर नजर टाकली आणि तो त्याच्या नेहमीच्या रस्त्याने चालू लागला. वाघ डौलाने निघाला आणि एका मिनीटात झुडपाआड होऊ लागला.

“अरेरे.. गेला..” हा विचार मनात चालू असतानाच, आजुबाजुच्या सर्व गाड्या चालु झाल्या. गाईड सर्वांना वेगवेगळ्या सूचना देऊ लागले. एकच गोंधळ उडला. सगळ्या गाड्या फिरून एका निमुळत्या रस्त्याच्या तोंडाशी येऊन थांबू लागल्या. गाड्यांची घाईगडबड- त्यांचा आवाज, लोकांची बडबड, पुढे जाऊन थांबायची शर्यत या सगळ्यात थोडा वेळ गेला. मी चक्क खिडकीतून डोक बाहेर काढून पाहत बसलो. अचानक शांतता पसरली आणि समोर वाघ आलेला दिसला. तसाच शांतपणे, निर्विकारपणे चालत चालत रस्त्याला आडवा – उजव्या बाजूने येवून डाव्या बाजूस झुडुपात शिरला.

परत तोच प्रकार.. गाड्याची घाई, गडबड, आवाज, गोंधळ.. मात्र ह्या वेळेस आमच्या गाडीला मागे फिरुन पुढच्या रस्त्याला यायला थोडा वेळ लागला. तोपर्यंत वाघ रस्त्याच्या मध्यभागी पोचला होता, दिमाखात चालत गर्द झडीत दिसेनासा झाला. हा रस्तासुद्धा आधीच्या सारखाच होता, त्यामुळे पाच मिनीटापूर्वीचा फ्लॅशबॅक बघितल्यासारखे वाटले. तीच शेवटची झलक डोळ्यात साठवून घेतली.

संध्याकाळचे सहा वाजून गेले होते. सोबतच्या गाड्या एक एक करून परतल्या. आम्ही अजुन एक-दोन ठिकाणांवर जाऊन पाहणी केली, पण वेळेअभावी परत जाणे भाग होते. शेवटी काही मोर निरोप घ्यायला म्हणून भेटून गेले. काही मिनीटांत वातावरण पालटले. अंधार त्याचे साम्राज्य पसरवू लागला. गार वारा सुटला. आकाशाने गच्च चांदण्यांनी सजवलेली चादर पांघरली.

जंगलातून बाहेर पडताना बर्‍याच गोष्टींनी मनात खोलवर जागा मिळवल्या आणि घट्ट रुतुन बसल्या.

एका घरातील समाजकार्य करणारी तिसरी पिढी, महारोग्यांनी बनविलेल्या कलकृति, जंगलातील शातंता, वाघाची चाल, वाघ समोर असताना पर्यटकांतील विलक्षण वातावरण आणि पश्चिमेच्या अंधार्‍या आकाशातील तेजस्वी गुरु, शुक्राची जोडी…

Treasure in Kudal

Every year my childhood holiday plans were used to be same! During my schooldays I spent all summer and Diwali vacation at Solapur. My Grandpa’s place! All my relatives are located there, so there used to be lots of ceremonies and I enjoyed those things with my cousins. But since I took up engineering course in college, there are always clashes in examinations and other’s vacation. So this time I somehow managed and went to my Ajol (आजोळ) after many years!

I attended marriage ceremony of my cousin brother. After that I and other family members travelled around 600km in two days visiting almost 8 places some in Maharashtra state and some in Karnataka state. There is a lot to tell about it but I am going to share the most interesting thing in my trip.

Kudal Sangameshwar

Sangameshwar Temple of Lord Shiva my family always visits. It is said that on the day of Gudi Padwa i.e. first day of lunisolar Hindu Calender, rising Sun’s rays directly fall on Shivling through five doors. (In some references it is mentioned – day is Mahashivaratri. So I will write another blog in future when I check it by myself!) Beside this temple there is one more interesting thing, I am very excited to tell about.

Harihareshwar Temple is found in excavation at Hattarsang-Kudal (Google map) in Solapur district, Maharashtra state where the river Bheema confluences with Seena. The information board there states – This temple was built in 11^th century (1018 AD) at the time of Chalukyas of Kalyani. It is one of the ancient temples in Maharashtra state. In Solapur Harihareshwar is only temple where Lord Shiva and Lord Vishnu are worshiped together. Shivling found here in excavation, is called as बहुमुखी शिवलिंग. Height is 1.99meters, circumference is 4meters and weight is 4000 kg. It has 359 faces of Shiva and other few gods!

Temple has various sections like – Mukhmandap, Ardhmandap, Rangmandap, Antaral, Garbhgriha. (मुखमंडप, अर्धमंडप, रंगमंडप, अतंराळ, गर्भगृह). There are no evidences of cement and sand in the building of temple. Main features of temples are sculptures, design and architecture of Garbhgriha. Many sculpts are lying in and around the temples. Attractive things in the temple – Idol of Lord Kalbhairava, few sculptures fitted in the ceiling – a woman having one face and five bodies, lord Krishna playing with Gopiyas. Sculptures of Kaliyamardan, snakes, design on the walls and pillars are fascinating.

There were many enthralling things but because I never studied archaeology, I could not gather more information. Well now, I should probably study little bit about Archaeology!!

February 2012

I won’t forget February 2012 throughout my life. The start of the month was with the dilemma of taking new task which could have been important in my career OR to go with traveling plans made almost two months back. The first week almost went in deciding ‘what to do?’ But with the suggestions by my parents I decided to travel!

The first destination was Solapur, around 250km away from Pune. The reason was marriage ceremony of my cousin brother. After marriage it is customary for married couple to visit holy place of kuldevata and other god/goddess. So with them I and other family members traveled around 600km in two days visiting almost 8 places some in Maharashtra state and some in Karnataka state.

The day I came back from Solapur I had to catch train to Nagpur which is around 900km away from Pune. From Nagpur I went to Anandwan located in Warora, Chandrapur district. Anandwan is known for Late Baba Amte – great social worker who worked a lot for Leprosy patients. I stayed there for 3 days which I think are very less to understand Anandwan. During my stay at Anandwan I also went to Tadoba forest which is famous for tigers.

From Nagpur I went to capital of India, Delhi. In Delhi I traveled with Metro train for the first time in my life! There I got to see President’s House, Parliament of India, two world heritage sights and several other tourists’ spots. From Delhi I returned to Pune around 1600km journey by Indian Railway!

So next 3-4 posts will be about the places I visited and how traveling made February special. Stay tuned!!

Pune Science Film Festival

Pune is always happening. This time it was again something different.

First Pune Science Film Festival took place at National film archive of India (NFAI) in association with Vishwa Scientific (VS), Vigyan Prasar (VP) and Khagol Vishwa (KV). During the three days of event, there were screening of films, presentations and Docudramas.

Behind the Scene:

Pune Science Film Festival

Year 2012 is Tapapurti (completing 12 years) year of Khagol Vishwa. KV basically works in Astronomy has organized many outreach programs over the years like arranging Star Parties and Science Congress at Pimpri-Chinchwad. KV and VS two sister organizations decided to host Pune Science Festival. This festival initially had three parts exhibitions of research projects of 15 research institutes in Pune, interactions with eminent scientists and screening of science popularizing films. Experiencing the potential and depth each of these parts, it was decided to organize each past as event independently.

Speaking about the first-ever such festival, co-coordinator of the festival, Mayuresh Prabhune said, “The film medium is the most attractive and effective to reach out to the masses. The graphics and visuals are easier to connect and help understand the subject better.”  Prabhune said that though the films this year have been contributed by research centres and amateurs only, the festival will inspire more contributions from next year.

Day 1:

Prof. Deshmukh, Prashat Pathrabe, Dr. Bhatkar and Dr. Natu

Professor A.L. Deshmukh, president of Khagol Vishwa explained the importance of science films and bringing eminents scientists in front public for direct interacion.

Dr. Bhatkar said “ For the first time science film festival is organised other than by Indian science congress and it is like public private partnership program. Make films on scientist in India show what and how they changed the world. There is need of making films in regional languages and also using hightech facilties suuch as IPTV. Tomorrows directors, scientists are coming from these audience.”

Dr. Ranade told role of Vigyan Prasar in popularizing the science all over India. He said “After the invention of films making, in just a decade of time technology was introduced in India. Comparing this delay with other technologies, surely it was not that late. But still even today we are lagging in using it for science popularsation”

As 2012 is year of mathematics, film festival began with the screening of a film on the life of eminent mathematician Shriniwas Ramanujan titled — the ‘Enigma of S Ramanujan’. Mr. Nandan Khudyadi, alumnus of FTII and filmmaker this film talked about his experiences while shooting. Als he was very impressed by response to festival. About the film he said “Film was made 25 years back for National council for science and technolgy communication. I went to TIFR for gathering research material. Film was shot at Ramanujan’s home and his school.”

There was talk by Dr. Arvind Natu on Nature Inspired Technology.

Next film screened was award winning film at 99^th Indian science congress (ISC). Home – our garden of eden.

There was another interactive session with Dr. Medha Khole, deputy director of IMD. She talked about – Extreme weather phenomena.

Last film of the day Electron ki Khoj produced by Vigyan Prasar.

Day 2:

Day started with film – Force of Nature. Documentary portrait of environmentalist David Suzuki, produced by Director Sturla Gunnerson.

X-ray ki khoj film produced by Vigyan Prsar was screened.

Special jury award winning film at ISC – The Dream Fulfilled was screened based on the challenges faced by DMRC during construction metro rail.

Another film made by Mr. Nandan Khudiyadi – C. V. Raman again got appreciation by audience.

In aternoon session Mr. Mayureh Prabhune, coordinator of festival presented project of Vishwa Scietific – Project Meghdoot which is researching the monsoon on difeerent levels. This project is exploring the sSocial effects of monsoon  and traditional knowledge of monsoon in different communities all over India.

There were other  films screened like The Darwin Puzzle and astronomical film – The Cosmic Collision.

Last film of second day was produced by Khagol Vishwa on Lonar crator featuring degradation of unique ecosystem in the salt water lake.

Day 3:

First film of the day was documentary film on Hubble space telescope produced by ESA. Arvind Paranjpye, Director of Nehru Planetorium Mumbai talked after film asnwering questions of audience right from astronomy to science in schools.

Film on biography of J. C. Bose produced by Vigyan Prasar was followed by the interactive session conducted by Ashok Khutwad of IMD – Amazing Antarctica. He spent almost a year on south pole for research.

Pune Science Film Festival finished with astronomical film – Journey to the stars.

During closing ceremony Ashok Khutwad promised to arranged film making workhop in summer vacation for students. Dr. Arving Ranade of Vigyan Prasar announced that VP along with Vishwa Scientic will host such science film festival in every district in Maharashtra. He also encourged studets to take part in next film festival organsied by Indian science congress.

Executive Committee of festival. Photograph by Mayuresh Konnur

I lost the horizon

Today afternoon I checked Human Space Flight sighting, and amazed to see, there were 3 chances to see it. One was in the early morning (5 o’clock – WTH, who wakes up at this time?) and another two were in the evening. I quickly checked Stellarium and wrote details down. Maximum elevations were approximately 14° and 21°. (Hmm.. okay.. I will spot ISS this time.) Sunset was at 18:00. Second sighting was around 10 minutes later. I went up on the building roof… and I glanced at sky. It was still blue I could spot Venus and Jupiter. I turned to South, ISS was about to approach. Alas..

Where am I standing?? It is the same terrace where I played, watched most scenic sunsets during my childhood. I remember watching meteor shower – first time from this terrace. Those were the days when sky used to be clear and horizon.. yes Horizon… horizon used to be visible.

When I turned to south, here is tall building blocking half of sky. I revolved round myself. Everywhere tall buildings are erected and no horizon. Somewhere in the middle of this cement jungle there are gaps glowed by city lights. But this is not the first time I am watching all this…

What am I thinking?? Anyone will tell that it’s hard to see the object below 25° from cities. Irony is I wrote this in last blog and still I am expecting to spot and track ISS.

I guess this is because of the impression of dark sky I had in past couple of weeks. Two weeks back I was at Panshet for star-party. I am not a regular sky observer but I am watching night sky since 2002. That night I saw which I hardly got to see for few times in these 9 years. Belt of the Milky Way: Right from Cassiopeia, Perseus, Taurus & Auriga, Orion to Canis-major and this happens only in truly dark sky. And last Saturday I was at Manchar to watch Total lunar eclipse. Eclipse already started when the Moon rose up on the horizon. I experienced most amazing thing about total eclipse that glowing of stars as if its no-moon for small period of time, before and after lunar eclipse stars get washed out like every full-moon night.

So this ‘evening’ has brought me back to city. And now I realize in city one can literally count stars sitting up on the terrace. I realize it’s vain to try watching objects below 25°. I realized – I lost horizon.

Two ISS sightings today evening

There are Two ISS sightings today evening

Data is collected from SATELLITE SIGHTING INFORMATION  and exact Az/Alt is taken from Stellarium software.

Location entered in Stellarium: Pimpri – Latitude N 18° 37′ 12.00″ Longitude E 73° 48′ 0.01″

1.

First is quite difficult to catch because maximum elevation in sky is 14°. Although time interval shown is about 8 minutes, it won’t be visible for whole 8 minutes.  Light pollution and tall buildings in city may block view of horizon. If you have clear sky you can get to watch both pass-by for couple of minutes.

Event	Time	Altitude	Azimuth	Altitude in Km
Approach	18:08	3° – just above horizon	180° – exact South	407
Maximum elevation  in the sky	18:12	14° above horizon	123° – somewhere between South and East	403
Departure	18:16	3° – just above horizon	71° – between East and North	401

2.

Looking at timings and watching Stellarium I can say, as soon as bright Venus touches horizon at West, ISS will approach from same direction.

Event	Time	Altitude	Azimuth	Altitude in Km
Approach	19:45	6° – just above horizon	251° – near West	403
Maximum elevation  in the sky	19:48	21° above horizon	318° – somewhere between West and North	401
Departure	19:51	6° – just above horizon	11° -near North	399

Try to watch and greet ISS.