31st December

We were visiting Saagar and Mona (Manali's chum) at Pheonix during 2001 December end. We had a nice trip to Las Vegas, Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam, Disney, Universal and Griffith Observatory. On 31st we visited a nearby place and in winding down mood.

I am not a romantic type to understand the 31st December hype. I like to treat is as just another day in life.

On that night, we were relaxing around. Saagar informed us he has a telescope. Wow! Since discovering interest in Physics (pretty late), I wanted to use a telescope.

We set the telescope in the open space in front of their home. It was a clear beautiful night. I used my priliminary knowledge about light to locate possible planets. Star-gazing isn't much exciting with the personal telescope for its lack of magnification that is needed.

The first planet we selected turned out to be Jupitar. It had a pink hue, may be the giant red spot was directly in front. We also spotted at least 3 moons.

Next we chanced upon Saturn. Can you believe it! It was magnificent. I just couldn't control my excitement. This was my first use of telescope and I was already looking at Saturn's rings. The image was hardly bigger than a wheat grain. Yet we could identify the ring.

We also trained the telescope on, what we believe, Mars and Saptarshee (Seven Sisters?).

It was a great experience. The best New Year morning I have ever spent.