October 10, 2017

When you wish upon a star….but eventually end up receiving blessings from the entire constellation. Those were the chilly winter nights that I cherish the most, where others would gather around a campfire in the countryside, poking fun at each other and reminiscing their childhood days, and then there was me who would spend hours on the terrace of our farmhouse capturing celestial objects and by grace, would spot a shooting star every 5-10 minutes. That night was one of the few nights where I’ve had a chance to see the night sky so clear. I was capturing the constellation Cassiopeia, when a shooting star passed across the constellation. No ! It’s not a composite image. Thankfully, I was looking up when the image was being captured. Such events always happen in a split second and as the trail was bright enough, few of the others also caught a glimpse of it. Capturing it was a moment of triumph for me. For some, it’s just a rock passing through a constellation, but for me, nothing seems trivial when it is the universe displaying its captivating charms.

Cassiopeia is an inverted W-shaped constellation consisting of 5 brightest stars (from top to bottom) viz. Caph (Beta), Schedar (Alpha), Gamma, Ruchbah (Delta) and Segin (Epsilon). This constellation contains nebulae, star clusters and of all, the most prominent Cassiopeia A, which is remnant of a supernova explosion in our galaxy. Cassiopeia A, at a distance of approximately 11,000 light years, is considered as the brightest extrasolar radio source in the sky. A radio source could be any of various celestial objects such as planets, supernova, quasars, galaxies, etc. from where radio waves originate and these radio waves are used by the astronomers with the help of radio telescopes, to study the composition, structure and motion of a particular celestial object.

November to January are the only three months I get to see the clear night sky. Sometimes, fortune smiles on me and I get a clear view in the month of October itself. And, that time of the year is indeed approaching. Winter is nigh, the sky will be clear again and stars will shine brilliantly on all of us. It would be the perfect time to feel the warmth of a campfire and watch the heavenly bodies put on a marvellous show. Clear night sky to all!