Before one made a wish, they were lost in a flash of light trail as all eye balls focused their attention towards the starry sky notwithstanding the glare from nearby high mast lighting. Still it turned out to be an evening to remember for many participants who attended the rendezvous with meteors, the Geminids meteor shower. Though there was no shower as such, but it was enough to fascinate the small group of astronomy fans who gathered at Velsao Beach. The AFA (Margao Chapter) organised a Geminids meteor shower observation which was attended by some 50 enthusiasts. The belief of wishing for something good to happen never dies down amongst humans. And, that was a moment for a few.
Whenever there is any astronomical events happen, members of Association of Friends of Astronomy (Goa) are in an overdrive mode and organize free programmes or public viewing session for the benefit of general public. The secretary of AFA, Gaurav Dhumatkar who is also Coordinator of Public Astronomical Observatory, Margao, briefed about the meteor shower. Giving an overview of AFA’s vision, mission, activities and he mentioned about the various astronomical events that are lined up for the coming months as the group settled far away from high mast as stars appeared to make a dazzling presence despite of the glare.
As they moved away from bright lighting, more stars made appearance as vision got adapted to darker sky. Located in between the constellations of Auriga in the northern and stunning Orion, the hunter towards southern sky, the third Zodiac constellation Gemini rose from where meteors appeared to radiate in all directions to the amusement of the stargazers. As meteors started appearing there were ohs, ahs and wow from the participants experiencing the phenomenon for the first time in their life as meteors appeared and disappeared in fractions.
Geminids meteors are visible during the month of December when Earth intersects the trail left by debris from asteroid named 3200 Phaethon. While all other meteor showers are linked to Earth passing through the orbit of cometary debris, Geminids are the only one visible as a result of an asteroid’s fragment entering earth’s atmosphere at high speed. At best possible moments, about 100 to 120 meteors are visible on moonless night, past midnight during meteor shower. When space debris or a stone, few mm across enters our atmosphere, it burns due to friction with air, leaving a trail of light that we call a meteor or a shooting star. Although meteor shower was not as expected, but it was anytime better than the last Leonid meteor shower in the month of November as due to overcast skies it turned out to be a damp squib. Meteors are best viewed in completely dark sky and at high altitude without any haze.
Gaurav informed, “The participants laid on the pristine sand and observed meteors radiating from Gemini and we managed to count more than 30 Meteors from 10 pm till Midnight. We also showed people the giant planet Jupiter, beautiful Pleiades star cluster and Orion nebula, one of the birth places of stars through the telescope, and how to identify constellations even as the Geminids continued.”
One of the first timers, Rahul Kaushik from Delhi pursuing his MBA in Goa, sharing his experience said, “It was amazing…loved it. I managed to observe about 20 meteors.” There were scores of others who made it a point to make the best of the opportunity provided by AFA to get the feel of night sky as never before.
It was a friendly atmosphere as participants enjoyed the night with meteor with Gaurav ably assisted by other AFA team members, Bhushan, Ajit, Raymond, Aiden, Shashank, Nathan and Rudresh spurred the interest of the participants in astronomy and understanding some basics concepts of starry night that always have fascinated humans from time immemorial.
