Being Global: The World at Your Front

October Second week remained busy for us doing astronomy outreach in three different districts, named Chitwan, Makawanpur and Sarlahi of Nepal for astronomical outreach. The team carried it's 8 inch Dobsonian to the places and talked about astronomy and did some observation whenever weather remained cleared! In the evening of October 16, some night sky observation and light pollution estimation has been done from Sauraha, Chitwan. During the observation, we observed Jupiter, Moon and the some of the prominent constellations visible at that time. The night remained partly cloudy and we played Hide and Seek with them for our observation. The next day, October 17, we did some night sky observation from Hotel Avocado, Hetauda where NAAM executives joined from from Birgunj. Though the weather played foul to us, the discussions remained unforgettable. Milan Rai, president-Nepali Association for Astronomical Mission (NAAM) expressed, " I have never thought that I could meet Rishi Sha

On October 8, Nepal had two astronomy events. As we were celebrating World Space Week in Nepal ( October 4-10), we also celebrate International Observe the Moon Night 2011( InOMN2011) in various parts of Nepal. This InOMN events were organized in Maitidevi and Lazimpat of Kathmandu valley and Birgunj which is outside the valley. The Draconids were recorded from several places as I guided some of the enthusiastic on how to record them, none of them approached me for the further processing of the data and archive. I observed Draconids from 9:45-11:45 PM and recorded four meteors during the time which is now available in the IMO database( www.imo.net). Through the prediction was ~1-6 meteors per minute, the rate was reduced due to moonlight which was almost full ( Full Moon on Oct 12). The next Meteor Shower is Orionid Meteor Shower which will be visible from October 21-23, 2011. I will be observing during the dates! How about you ???

This year, Space Generation Congress (SGC), annual meeting of Space Generation Advisory Council ( SGAC) ( spacegeneration.org) held in Cape Town, South Africa. This was the first time that SGC was held in Africa and also the record number of participants over a past several years!!! The congress provided me a great platform to interact with the people from different parts of the world. ............