For past few days......i have been curious about sky , space, universe.......or whatever we call it. Its amazing that when one sees at a clear sky at night, with so many stars, planets and other objects, it expands one's consciousness.
So to take a look at the night sky, I bought myself a "Konus - Skyview 60" telescope last week. :-)
Assembling it was easy but i took my own time understanding it. Then excitedly went up my building rooftop hoping to see some space stuff :P.
And then, the big question.........where do i start looking? Which direction do i point my telescope to see Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and all the other planets. Thats when my Galaxy-S android phone came to help. The Google Sky Map application was a beauty in helping me locate what i wanted to see in this infinite neverending sky above me (or rather i would say all around me).
It was 10pm and all that i could see then was Saturn as all the other planets, our Moon were on the other side...meaning, they were near the sun. So they wouldn't be visible at night for some more days now.
So i pointed my telescope up in the sky where my phone said i would find Saturn. And guess what..... i found it exactly where it said it would be. My excitement just grew :-). Technology makes things so easy :P
Now the next part was to adjust the scope and its focal length to see Saturn clearly. I was able to do that and adjust few scope parameters to see Saturn. And WOW !..........it was awesome. Saturn and its rings were clearly visible. Not like a huge image........but could clearly make out its round shape with the rings along its diameter. Looked gorgeous. I had only seen the images on T.V or the internet. But this day.........i was seeing it with my own eyes....Live ! :P
And after a while......a thought dawned in my mind. That was that Saturn there when i saw it? I mean yes it was Saturn.............but was it exactly at that same location when i saw it? We all know the fact that for light to each the earth it takes 8 minutes from Sun. So in this case, the rays of light from Sun, hit Saturn, and then get reflected from its surface towards earth. And that is how we see it. That is how we see all planets.
Saturn is 1 light hour away from Sun. It means it takes an hour for light to reach from Sun to Saturn. And then about 52 mins for few rays of light to reach from Saturn to Earth.
Interesting right ;-)
What that means is...........that Saturn what i was seeing with my telescope was not exactly there at that time. What i was seeing was Saturn that was there an hour back. Do you get my point :-)
So initially for me, the Truth was that what I was seeing was Saturn. But later I realized......that it was just a distortion of Truth, and not the actual truth :-) . (samajh ne waale samajh gaye !!!)
Space is indeed interesting. Reveals a lot just by being in the moment.
Here is the picture i managed to take from my DSLR cam...... to take a clear pic of Saturn, i would need a SLR and an adapter to attach it to the telescope!
