Author: Pradeep

  • Spending the 100 Hours in India

    This blog post was first posted in the 100 Hours of Astronomy Blog. The content was recovered using Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. I have posted the content here for purposes of keeping record.

    This is my first blog post here. I am Pradeep Mohandas, an amateur astronomer from India and also a member of SEDS. The International Year of Astronomy got me back to focus on my amateur astronomy work which was languishing because of several other space related activities that I was participating in and I’m always thankful for that. For my first post, I thought I should talk about the activities happening as part of 100 Hours of Astronomy in India.

    Most amateur astronomers in India were excited by the idea of an International Year for Astronomy when the International Astronomical Union presented this idea in 2003. When it was passed by the United Nations and became an event with support from the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the excitement grew. Word spread immediately online – through the several mailing lists, newsletters, astronomy clubs initially. In the run up to IYA, prominent Indian newspapers (both English and regional language newspapers) carried extensive articles and spread the word among the non-astronomy community and I’m sure it reminded many people of their own brief stint with astronomy and perhaps even got some to try it out again.Towards the end of 2008 and early 2009, word spread faster through the net, via mailing lists, more press notes (especially from the Indian National Point of Contact – IUCAA) and groups like Astronomers without Borders and Sidewalk Astronomy.

    Even before the recent Chandrayaan launch, India has several crazy amateur astronomers who are very dedicated to astronomy. When I looked at online groups around my home in Mumbai in 2004, I found not one but several, who travelled to the outskirts of this city (40-60 Kms) to watch the night skies and follow their passions as amateurs. There were still smaller groups who went on their own, some looked from their building tops and from the online discussions in the groups I have been on, I think this is just scratching the surface when it comes to India. The timing of the 100 Hours is slightly unfortunate here in India, as it comes bang in the middle of exam season (yes, it is a season here), when students hardly venture out or are allowed to venture out of home in the constant desire for grades. But, still at the time of writing there were 29 events registered in India. This is likely to increase keeping in mind that Indians love to do things like registeration etc. at the last minute.

    Still, even with 29 events, another thing to look at is turn out. This is expected to be very high and our events are often described by various people as HUGE. I think we can wait for the reports at the end of the 100 Hours for more.

    Also, innovation is in the soul of the typical Indian amateur astronomer. This is more or less reflected in the events planned out for 100 Hours here in India. A group of amateurs from the state of Gujarat plan to celebrate “Sun Day” at the Modhera Sun Temple, a 11th century heritage site, popular with tourists. The amateurs here are also being supported by the Tourism Department of Gujarat. This is one of the few Sun Temples found here in India, the famous one being at Konark in Orissa.

    Another event is planned at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar, a 17th century Indian observatory. They will also project the webcast from the 80 observatories here. Another group will be doing a 100 Hours of Astronomy Van halting at various venues. At each halt they will put banners and posters on astronomy, put up a scope and show celestial objects, while playing famous movie songs on astronomy, moon and the stars. They also offer the songs as ringtones! The group also putting up exhibits of space crafts and astronomical philately.

    Many groups are also visiting the village panchayats and government schools to show villagers celestial objects through a scope, that they have never seen before. We could have done with more activities in public institutions like Planetariums and Observatories but the reported 7000 astronomy clubs are taking up the slack.  I hope you enjoyed this sampling of events from India. Best of luck with your own 10 Hours of Astronomy event!

    (Thanks to Mr. Manoj Pai, Secretary, CIAA for the details)

  • Next-up in Astronomy: Messier Marathon 2009

    Among other things, the astronomy spiral is up and running again. I hope to participate in the Messier Marathon from March 26 – 28, 2009. I have the basics requirements for the Marathon ready and have prepared myself with knowledge updates. It was fun.

    Now, I am looking for an amateur astronomer who can lend a telescope and help me get to watch as many of the Messier and Solar System Objects that I can in one night. Will definitely keep everyone updated on the happenings.

  • Spring Cleaning

    Crazy February had a major victim – me. So, I set myself the target of balancing and re-hashing all my priorities in time for the Summer Solstice this month. I am happy to report that I have achieved that goal. You can now also see the content uploaded on the main webpages of my website, which have gone live – well ahead of the scheduled September 26, 2009 release. 

    With the new system updated successfully and everything working perfectly, I can now come back into the blogosphere. Thanks for hanging around.

  • Games children play

    This content originally appeared on https://pradx.org/blog. Recovered using the WayBack Machine from here.

    [These are random posts that I write, occassionally to please myself and occassionally to please others]

    This was inspired by the way kids collect on the play ground and what they play today compared to the games that I played in my child hood.

    Collecting the kids to play the game is as important as playing itself. It is a place where a group of kids build their social networks with a friend’s family. It is also a place where kids first face prejudice, understand to accept differences in stature or wealth and also gain a wealth of experience in team building and management.

    As a kid, I remember walking around the colony straining our vocal chords and calling mates, interacting with parents who make excuses, learn to negotiate your play times, learn a few things about saving money.

    Your resourcefulness is tested in the way you organise the games – according to number of kids, weather conditions, apparatus available, availability of grounds etc.

    The games itself were physically stimulating and mentally challenging.

    Today kids call each other over the phone, play with much more severe limitations like coaching classes, extra curricular activities etc. They are physically exhausted at the end of play time and it almost turns into a chore rather than being a time of conscious relaxation and sub-conscious learning.

  • Let the elections begins!

    This was originally posted on https://pradx.org/blog. I retrieved the post using the Wayback Machine here.

    The Election Commission yesterday announced the dates for the national elections – April 16 through May 13. Results will be announced on May 16. 714 million people will vote with 522 constitutences will be using photo electoral rolls. The elections will take place across 8,28,804 polling stations and will be governed by 4 millions civic officials and 2.1 security officials. The largest democracy in the world swings into action.

    The political work outs have already begun with boards, flags, wall paintings, posters on the streets of villages and towns. In party headquarters, the alliances are being forged, the party tickets (the permission to run for a seat on behalf of the party) are being sold and candidates are being finalised. In the Election Commission voter list have been finalised and are running through a list of measures to keep the voting as transparent as possible. Various media houses are running with their own campaigns and coverage to get India to vote and to perhaps create a US like sentiment amng the masses in India. 

    A major element for this election would be the newly demarcated constitutencies by the delimitation process. Here’s how Mumbai looks now:

    1. Mumbai South: Colaba, Mumbadevi, Malabar Hill, Byculla, Sewri, Worli (MP: Milind Deora)
    2. Mumbai South Central: Anushakti Nagar, Chembur, Dharavi, Sion Koliwada (GTB Nagar), Wadala, Mahim (MP: Mohan Rawale)
    3. Mumbai North Central: Bandra, Vile Parle, Kalina, Chandivili, Kurla (MP: Eknath Gaikwad)
    4. Mumbai North East: Bhandup, Mulund, Vikhroli, Ghatkopar, Mankhurd and Shivaji Nagar (MP: Gurudas Kamat)
    5. Mumbai North West: Goregaon, Dindoshi, Jogeshwari, Andheri, Versova (MP: Priya Dutt)
    6. Mumbai North: Dahisar, Borivali, Kandivali, Magathane, Charkop, Malad (MP: Govinda Ahuja)

    This time for my first elections, I will be casting my vote along with 43 million other voters electing a representative to the Lok Sabha in the Mumbai South Central constitutency.

  • Messier Marathon 2009

    Every year towards the end of March, amateur astronomers around the world participate in what is known as the Messier Marathon. The idea is to watch and catalog the maximum number of Messier Catalog objects in one night as possible. 

    Hartmut Frommert and Christine Kronberg have been maintaining the SEDS Messier Marathon pages. [Disclaimer: I am the founder and President for SEDS in India]. The Marathon can be called one of the few astronomy related sports and from all the reports that you read on the astronomy mailing lists you can only fathom the joy that you get from doing this Marathon with a difference.

    Now a days, people have also been adding to the mix, the spotting of Planets of the Solar System on the same night. This is said to have a challenging effect on the contestants involved. This year, I hope to make a first attempt at the Marathon. I hope you do too.

    Here are some SEDS resources to help you and wishing you good luck for the Marathon!

    1. Messier Marathon Homepage
    2. Messier Marathon Results page [you can also contribute your results here – veteran or amateur]
    3. Messier Catalog
    4. Messier Blog

    This post has been posted after a kick from a recent Messier blog posting.

  • An Opportunity to spread Renewable Energy

    Today, students in the state of Maharashtra go in for their HSC exams. This is the higher secondary examination whose percentage along with the Common Entrance Test which plays a contribution to a student’s admission into a college of their choice. Newspapers reported that many of the students would have to face trouble because the examination centres at many of the places reportedly don’t have electricity because of the deficit that the state of Maharashtra faced.

    While it is easy to sit down and criticise the Government for the lack of planning and implementation of its energy programme, it’s the case of no use of crying over spilt milk. It is now essential to look at stop gap solutions in the interim so that students don’t face trouble and do not curse everyone for their failed future.

    I see a possible role for new and renewable energy sources here – one that will also have a long term impact on the next generation of Indians that would probably take India faster on the Renewable Energy track. With a little bit of initiative, schools could have easily collaborated with government agencies like IREDA or MEDA and corporates like Suzlon to install on campus solar or wind energy systems which deliver sufficient power to run fans in school compounds. Better school design would have assured proper ventilation and natural light for writing purposes. Even if that is not possible, meeting the lighting and cooling requirements of a school could easily have been met by a small renewable energy plant. 

    This not only would fix the problem for students but would also be a problem that the Government can solve with a longer term solution than with short term fixes. Corporate houses can easily benefit in terms of CSR as well as recognition among students who can spread the word on their work much faster than any ad or PR agency. This will also spread word on programmes and financing made available by IREDA and MEDA.  Also, just think about how dedicated students will be towards renewable energy which helped them write their exam like any other centre in the State. Since this is a win/win for all concerned, I do not understand why this hasn’t been implemented in schools and colleges. Hopefully it will be – next year if not this year!

  • ISRO/ASI Conference on Low Cost Planetary Missions Conference

    The 8th Low Cost Planetary Missions Conference (LCPM8) will be held in Goa, India between August 31, 2009 and September 4, 2009.The Conference is held by the Astronautical Society of India (ASI) with the support of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on behalf of the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA).

    The programme of the conference includes: 

    1. Low Cost Planetary Missions: Science, Perspective and Challenges
    2. National and Joint International Programmes in Planetary Exploration
    3. Reduction and optimisation of the cost of Planetary Missions
    4. Recent Low Cost Planetary Missions
    5. New Results and Discoveries in the field of Planetary Exploration
    6. Low Cost Missions currently in Definition or Development Phase
    7. Science Instruments for Low Cost Missions
    8. Utilisation of existing Mini Satellite buses for Planetary Exploration
    9. Advanced Technologies for Future Low Cost Missions
    10. Advanced Concepts for future Low Cost Solar Exploration missions

    Here is the first announcement of opportunity to participate [PDF] in the conference.

    The contact person for pre-registration is Dr. D Gowrisankar: lcpm2009@isro.gov.in.

    For further details on the conference:

    1. Dr. J N Goswami – director@prl.res.in
    2. Dr. M Y S Prasad – mys@shar.gov.in

    Hope you can enjoy Goa and participate in this conference!

  • Purpose of life

    This blog post was originally posted on https://pradx.org/blog and was retrieved from the Wayback Machine here.

    The purpose of my life is to harmonise Man and Nature.

    Well, said like that it sounds pretty lame, eh? But, believe me or not, that statement took 5.5 years to put together. This is a pretty long post and if you want to miss it, feel free to. You would not be missing anything huge. Just some personal stuff.

    I think writing this without a full fledged 5.5 year explanation would be leaving it in the air for the reader. So, here it is. Have a pitcher of water by all means. Settle down and start reading.

    I was 18 when I started what can be called “The Pradx Project” with the aim of making me an athletic scholar. The name was inspired by the “Blair Witch Project”. The aim here was not to hunt down the Blair Witch, but to hunt down my inner most self and making it to do something – help me become an athletic scholar. 5.5 years down, I’m still fat and pretty a poor front benching student. 5.5 years down the line, one thing is pretty simple – The Pradx Project isn’t successful. There was one part of the project that worked pretty well – reading and writing. The writing section spewed many of the blog posts you read here (now you know why it’s pradx). The reading section was also a great trip starting out with Wodehouse and ending up with some pretty strong stuff.

    Take a sip, relax.

    Basically, Pradx Project was a self improvement project started by a simple half witted 18 year old. It did some cool things to me that I’m still committed to – reading, writing, SEDS, environment and education. But it ended up doing everything except improving me. The reason for this came to me like it always does during exams in December, 2008 – procrastination. In February 2009, I still have not gotten rid of that demon – procrastination. But, I’ve got lots of stuff in my brain (material) that I can now use in a variety of ways to help me and that way I think the 5.5 years is well spent.

    I’m giving you some hope now. Relax. Want to take a sip?

    Mom started me on this first. Push. Without starting there is nothing to work on. So, I started to get some very little work done from a sense of total procrastination. If you understand mechanical engineering, this was friction to the motion of the car of procrastination. The breaks have not been applied yet – the foot is going there towards the pedal. Reading and writing were the first agents that provided this friction from a sense of total procrastination. And perhaps, college. So, things look pretty gloomy right now, yeah? Well, its pretty hard to increase this friction without taking the foot and applying the brakes on procrastination and getting to work. This happened in a simple Tweet that Kirk sent me – (to paraphrase) no system would teach you discipline.

    Now, drink a long gulp, the next paragraph is going to get long…

    Discipline is a sore thumb for me. Krishnamurti and Osho got me worked up on how discipline was wreaking havoc on life. That thought process got on far enough to make me believe that discipline was a bad guy. But, then slowly I began to look at discipline that was being talked about in these lines and realised that they made more sense on external discipline – applied by some external agent (parents, peers, systems, God etc) and not a sense of internal discipline and planning that comes from within. Look at that internal discipline which gets automatically applied in any situation that helps you think it out, relax etc and you see that discipline was not such a bad nut you made him out to be after all. In fact, this ounce of discipline if applied at the beginning of the 5.5 years would have probably changed the 5.5 years entirely. Wow, cool discovery. Nudge it a little more and I found that this system (as spoken of in Zen etc) was already existent in me and I only had to be more aware of it and it automatically adjusted and worked for me. As Ray Bradbury puts it, you only have to get out of the way. Everyone was getting along really well until the I came in between.

    Phew. Now, with all of that out of the way let’s get back to the Purpose of Life statement. Yeah, its only starting now.

    This whole decade has been one of slowly rising environmental awareness. We’re looking at Nature and acknowledging that we’re not being fair on the Man-Nature relationships. We ought to give more to Nature than we’re taking from it. On the other hand, we’re also constantly improving Man to make him more biologically strong to work on the scarce environment. Hence, we’re working on both Man and Nature and the relationship is created by Engineering. If you have a trouble with that statement, sorry I’m not ready to debate it cause I already spent nearly five years on it and I’m moving on. Spend 5 years and think about it.

    The harmonisation of Man-Nature relationship helps me to be fit, to be athletic, to be studious, to be funny, to be a good parent (I’m not yet married – darn I don’t even have a girlfriend yet – applications invitedfor the post of girlfriend), to be a scientist, to be a researcher or even to be a sportsperson. Again, think about it for 5 hours before commenting – I took 5.5 years. The idea is to optimise both Man and Nature as much as possible and when it reaches its optimum to jump to the next planet.

    Outer Space provides this huge laboratory to check out Nature which you can look at through a microscope or through a telescope. Since, I really can’t stand up to long names, I prefer to look through telescopes than microscopes. Does that explain my interest in astronomy. A new love is radio astronomy where I hear the heartbeat of the Universe (a whole new world!). So, that’s how I’m checking out Nature.

    Energy is a simple and temporary hack for minimising the use of resources created for us by Nature. Think about it.

    Primary Education is a way to work on the Man. It’s the best place to work on the future batch of Man-Nature harmonisers, isn’t it?

  • The Adventurous Untour

    I was thinking of doing an untour for a very long time and finally got a chance to do it between January 4 and January 16 2009. This was perhaps the most unorganised trip that I have ever taken. A step ahead of what I did this time could possibly be a group untour where the group decided where to go together. That would be really cool to do. And, cooler still would be if the group is a bunch of strangers! Any takers? This would really amplify the concept of an untour.

    Anyway, only two things became certain about four days before the trip. The starting date was to be January 4 and was to be a train to Secunderabad. The last date was to be January 14 and was to be the train back to Mumbai. With these boundaries set, I set out to Secunderabad on January 4. I decided not to push my luck too much and agreed to stay with relatives and friends during the duration of the tour – money saved, parents happy. :)

    The train to Secunderabad took me on a  journey via Aurangabad. After Secunderabad, I hung out with Raghunandan in Hyderabad and had a glimpse into his hectic life. It is perhaps the most unorganised life that I have seen anyone lead. I went on a day long Hyderabad tour on a bus, the idea was to have an idea to say something that I did during this trip other than talk about and discuss about space – a sore point with my parents earlier and something I don’t bring up too often now. Anyway, I got a sub-10-degree-celsius-night sky observation junkett thanks to Raghunandan’s friends – Vaibhav and Partha on their cool 8-inch reflector scope. This was perhaps the highlight of the Hyderabad chapter of my trip.

    I then moved onto Vellore on a private bus (Kesineni, for the details people). Got down at Vellore in the early morning and moved into a TNSTC bus to Katpadi. From there I took a rickshaw to Vellore Institute of Technology. I spent three days there meeting the teams that work to run the SEDS chapter there(disclosure: I’m the President of SEDS, India), caught the updates on the conference and perhaps for the first time met three members of my Exec Comm face to face. It was a great experience none the less. Here too, thanks to a guy, I found out about a direct bus from Vellore to Trivandrum. We went out and booked a ticket for the 741 kms to Trivandrum.

    This part of the journey was largely spoiled by the fact that my stomach was upset with me. For perhaps the first time, I sat with out eating anything solid for about 24 hours. I broke that fast with a good lunch in the afternoon – home cooked food at Varkala. But, I’m getting ahead of myself. I came to Trivandrum Central and saw the famous Baker-style Indian Coffee House. I didn’t take a pic because my stomach was urging me to get home quickly. I took a bus from there to Varkala and covered the 41 kms distance.

    A small side adventure on the way back to Mumbai on the large 2048 kms journey back home. I had a small tweetup with @kg86, who’s with the Navy and who rode all the way from his base at Willingdon Island, Cochin to Ernakulam Stn as I passed through. Thank you, man, it was awesome meeting you there.

    The most important point of this untour was whether this is possible in India or not. If you’re adventurous enough, anything is possible. I really hope someone tries an all strangers untour of some region of India as suggested in the first paragraph and share their experiences on a blog.