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Planetstruck!

As a part of a global programme, 100 hours of Astronomy, an event was held at Pimpri Chinchwad where people could take a closer look at Saturn

Arundhati Ranade

Posted On Thursday, April 09, 2009 at 04:04:34 AM

One of the participants of the event looking through a telescope

Some streets and chowks in Pimpri Chinchwad were full of enthusiastic people gazing at the skies during the early evening hours for the last six days.

As a part of a global programme called 100 hours of Astronomy, a city-based amateur astronomy group called Khagol Vishwa have organised a special programme called Akash Aplya Dari (Sky at your doorstep).

Around 6,500 people watched the Saturn rings and the Moon closely with telescopes. The whole world was having a glimpse of the stars and planets between April 2 to 5 as International Astronomical Union initiated the 100 hours of Astronomy.

Khagol Vishwa, a group consisting of young professionals and students was the only organisation from Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad to take part in this global programme.

Khagol Vishwa’s young volunteers were on the streets in the evening between 7 to 11.30 pm at various parts. “We had kept our telescopes near Morya Gosavi temple, Chinchwad, Bhel Chowk, Nigdi, Ajmera Colony, Sangvi Chowk and Kalewadi for the last six evenings,” informed Kiran Thombre, one of the volunteers of Khagol Vishwa.

The event got tremendous response from the citizens from all age groups. “We had seen the Saturn rings in a picture and we always wondered how it will actually look, as Saturn is hardly visible with bare eyes.

I was very excited to see the rings with the Saturn,” said Akanksha, a student of Class sixth. “After viewing craters on moon and the Saturn rings even I developed an interest in astronomy. We had never seen this
before,” said Ujjwala Kokre, a parent.

“We were handling four telescopes, and we kept it at various places,” said Akash Karvande, another student from class X. “We enjoyed our first week of the vacation in very innovative way by making people aware about the subject,” he said.

One of the founders of Khagol Vishwa mentioned that they were the only ones to organise such an event in the city.

“We are going to give the details of our venture to the global forum as they are holding competitions for making people aware in the astronomy year.

We were the only ones from Pune to organise such event free of cost for citizen’s interest,” told Mayuresh Prabhune one of the founders of Khagol Vishwa.

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