The sky was getting dark. Yes !! this time we had a very
bright Iridium satellite in the northern sky around mag. -7. These satellites are those
communication ones which suddenly brighten up by a great magnitude and
last only for few seconds. They look exactly like very bright meteors. I
just wanted to get this splendid sight captured in my camera. Now the
following instance happened which is a very big mystery. I aimed the
camera at a particular location using the altitude and azimuth
information given. The 3 of us waited for it to appear. Then suddenly a
slow moving satellite appeared somewhere near to the predicted position. Thinking that
satellite to be the one about to suddenly brighten up I aimed the camera
there. But the exposure was already started, so I had to end
it unnecessarily and start a new one in the new location. Then what
happened should not have. In our original location, I saw another
satellite move steadily and dimly initially and then suddenly brighten
up to magnitude -6 or -7 as specified in the chart. And what had
happened was that now the camera wasn't aimed there at all so I had
missed it. Just because of confusion of another satellite had made me
complicate maters. But when I got the reel developed, then I got another
shock much bigger than this one. There really was something like an
Iridium satellite registered on my reel !! I don't know how it was
registered while shifting the camera position !!After this instance,
the sky got darker and darker. The first thing we noticed was the
northern Milky-Way which was just fantastic with the Double Cluster
bright. We were in a location with east and south horizon clearly viewed
(except for some city lights in the east). The western location had some
trees and so did north have some. We started with the usual Messier
objects mainly clusters. But there was a faded comet in the northern sky
in Cassiopeia. (I recollected the name looking at the software) It was
C/2004 Q1 Tucker. I think I must have not even aimed for it because it was
low in the northern city light-pollution. After that our observation must have continued for some
time. I do not recollect much what happened after that.
By this time I
was very well deep into time after the "comet-bug" bit me. It was around
1.5 years back that I had got extremely fascinated by comets (Reason
unknown till date !!!) So this day I wanted to attempt for whatever
comet was visible. In the western setting sky we had Taurus
constellation. There was a periodic comet called 78/P Gehrels 2 with a
period of 7.2 years. I have a special affinity to periodic comets (up to this day)
just because of the spectrum of exciting and fascinating names they
possess. So this time I had got to see it. I aimed for it with the
8" and I never knew how faint comets look like. This one was maybe 10th
magnitude or so (don't recollect at all). I tried for it for 15-20 mins.
at a stretch with no avail. So I had to give it up. This was my first
comet attempt for the day and the second attempt in life after 2/P Encke.
In the south-western sky in Eridanus we had another faint comet of
between 8-10 magnitude called C/2003 K4 LINEAR. So I moved the
instrument toward this region. Now I'm very nervous when it comes to
finding anything in crowded regions like Eridanus and Virgo. I am like
this even today, then just imagine 1 year back when I was new to
observation !! But I had a detailed finder chart with me and with
naked-eye star-hopping I tried to get to the location where it was,
between galaxies !! For the first time ever I had strained my eye to the
limit for finding the faintest star visible to the eyes. I was roughly
there and aimed the finder scope there. Then looked into the eyepiece
and moved here and there for sometime. I came across something fuzzy and
hardly noticeable to my inexperienced eyes. Remember all this time the
constellation was quite into city lights. Upto this day I don't know
what that was and after looking up in the chart I noticed that it was
quite close to the planetary nebula NGC 1360. And I was sure of seeing
that object rather than the comet. So this was probably the first day
when I saw a new planetary NGC 1360 trying for something else. And this
was my second comet attempt for the day. Look at the third finder chart
below, showing what I missed that day, a comet, a galaxy and a planetary
nebula all close to one field of view !!! Noted successful comet hunter
Don Maccholz also recollects that once he too mistook this planetary for
a new comet and reported it.
As night set in the sky grew darker and
darker. Then we took some rest sometime late night and got up again at
mid-night. There was a third comet in the Southern sky, the first one to
be discovered that year, C/2005 A1 (LINEAR). It was somewhere deep in the
dense Southern Milky-Way that day. Again with the help of the detailed
finder chart, I tried to search for it but could nowhere get it. This
was my fourth and last comet attempt for the day. After this we took
rest for sometime, and mainly refuge from the chilly winds that were
blowing hard, and I thought of continuing observing again early morning.
This was the coldest observing session I had faced because of the lack
of even one protective clothing above me other than the shirt that I was
wearing, and to worse matters the harsh and cold winds !! Then at dawn
the view of the Milky-Way was stupendous, beyond words, the density of
stars. For the first and only time I could see the dense Southern
Milky-Way of Crux and Centaurus region extending right up to the horizon
!!
Now, I'm very fearful of the dark and especially when it comes to
jungles.....the fear's pathetic. And the location which we had chosen
for the night was the worst and the riskiest decision made by us. We
chose to stay on a sloping land feature in a deviation from the forest
main road, still
we were in jungle premises (the city roads were around 10 km away). And
people familiar with this place, no one dared enter this entire location
in 2 or 4 wheelers
after 6 pm because of the fear of wild elephants which create a havoc
here and come in conflicts with humans. Out on the roads there are also
good probabilities of leopards coming anywhere there. And we were in the
open...with any thing just popping up from any side at any time in the
peak of the night. What
would we have done if either an elephant or leopard silently stalked
around us?? And we were only 3 of us. So I HAD to be very close to both
other companions due to the horror of the dark. Now they were complete
beginners and so completely uninterested in deep-sky observing. So they
decided to go to sleep after midnight in the car parked right beside the
telescope and I was left to observe alone. This was a night of such
a terror that even though they were just 2 feet beside me in the
car I was very, very scared to observe out alone !! I wanted them out of
the car. And they didn't want to observe. For my sake of comfort, the door and window
too couldn't be kept
open because of the horrible winter and chills blowing especially that
day, and we had no trees beside us to block winds too. I was in a big
fix and even though terribly frustrated due to the best Milky-Way in
front of me, I was helpless in overcoming the fear of being outside. And
there was so much that I wanted to see. This was a night of ABSOLUTE
TERROR !! Such are ups and downs in deep-sky observations in the darkest
places !!
Finally I too had to go in the car for some time. But at
dawn I decided to get out forcing even them to accompany me. The view
after stepping out of the car was...HEAVEN ON EARTH !! especially in the
South (because there is just nothing but forest and forest to the South
of this place). As mentioned, stars upto 5 degrees above the horizon
could be seen clearly. Now the following "thing" what I saw can never be
explained by anyone who would even have a glimpse at it. When I looked at Ophiuchus constellation in the east, I saw a
bright naked-eye tail-less comet like object near the star Eta Ophiuchi.
It looked like a bigger and brighter version of Omega Centauri with
naked-eyes. This was real suspicious because there is nothing of that
sort there, it had to be unidentified, I knew that. But still I must
have given a look at my finder chart to verify, just in case. I
initially REALLY believed that I had discovered a naked-eye comet !! And
as it is early morning and few people are observing I can be the first
one to report it. But I thought of taking a look at it with the
telescope. I aimed the finder there and the view through the finder was
a different one, it really looked like a globular cluster, diffuse and
unresolved. I was just eager to know how the view would be through the
eyepiece would be. When I looked into the eyepiece....the view was the
most shocking view anyone can ever have through the eyepiece in their
entire life.......it was something really really really unexplainable
and out of this world. I knew NO astronomical object would ever look
like this and there's nothing created in astronomy like this. I'll like
to explain how the object looked in my first thought "A center with very
symmetrical arms of metallic and steel color. It had 3 purely symmetric
arms on each side looking like a graphic of a galaxy created on computer
with silver metallic color and this was bright" I looked again and again
into the eyepiece hoping it's not a bad illusion that I'm seeing. I even
called the other two friends who were there, total beginners in
astronomy to have a look into the eyepiece. They had never looked into
the eyepiece before to see a deep-sky object but still they questioned
me about what was that? Then after some time this object, originally
stationary, slowly started moving like how high clouds move. And with
time it started dispersing and it's arms fading.
I still do not know
up to today what it can be but I blame it to be an atmospheric phenomena
created due to the extreme chilly and windy weather there. Waiting for that answer
which will unlock the mystery of this phenomena. Overall one of the most
memorable sessions had ended.
Comet finder charts created using
"Cartes du Ciel" software :
