OVERNIGHT OBSERVATION: Saturday, 5 – Sunday, 6 October 2019

The Sagar School Observatory at Tijara, near Alwar  

________________________________________ 

Observation details:

The event is "low threshold" - close to Delhi so relatively easy to reach for all, with reasonably dark skies, but don't expect Himalayan skies.

Date and time:

Saturday, 5 October 5, 2019, 5 pm until Sunday, 6 October 6:30 am.

Location:

The Sagar School Observatory, Village Baghor, Tehsil Tijara, Near Maliyar Gurjar, Alwar, Rajasthan 301411

Transport:

-A bus will transport the participants to the site from Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan, 3 Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi.

-Please arrive at the Institut by 1:30pm. We will reach the observation site at 5pm, which is 1 hour ahead of sunset. Travel time from Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan to The Sagar School Observatory is approximately 2½ hours.

NOTE:

If you will be traveling to the site on your own, mention this when you apply for the call.

________________________________________

This is the second event planned as part of Saros 132, a collaboration between Rohini Devasher and Astro-photographer and amateur astronomer Ajay Talwar.

“Throughout its long history, observation has always been a form of knowledge that straddled the boundary between art and science, high and low sciences, elite and popular practices. As a practice, observation is an engine of discovery and a bulwark of evidence. It is pursued in solitude but also in the company of thousands. As a product, observations have been accumulated anonymously over millennia but also authored singly by individuals eager to secure priority and fame. They have been preserved in proverbs, in chronicles, in diaries, in archives, in learned journals and in computer banks. The very word ‘observation’ is suggestively ambiguous: at once a process, a product, an all-consuming pursuit.”[1]

A group of people will be selected to join us for a night of collective observation/speculation at The Sagar School Observatory at Tijara, near Alwar. The observatory on the school campus is managed by Ajay, who takes weekly classes using their research level 14 inch Celestron Schmidt Cassegrain telescope.

On 5 October, the Moon will be in its first quarter. Jupiter and Saturn will be visible in the evening. Saturn and the Moon will be close together in conjunction. Uranus and Neptune will also be visible later in the night. We will also hunt for star clusters and double stars.

Over the course of the evening and through the night, we might think about observation and recording, the practices of taking notes and paying attention as they were cultivated by early modern observers and as they continue to be practiced by amateur astronomers across the world today.

Come join the ‘star party’!

________________________________________ 

Saros 132 is realized within the framework of Five Million Incidents, 2019-2020 supported by Goethe-Insitut / Max Mueller Bhavan in collaboration with Raqs Media Collective.

[1]Daston Lorraine, Histories of Scientific Observation, University of Chicago Press, 2011

Observation Plan