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SINC09 and BAS "Galileoscope - Telescope Making" Workshop @ VIT University.
Mar
1
Bangalore Astronomical Society was invited for Conducting a workshop on “Galileoscope - Telescope Making” at SEDS India National Conference 2009 held on 28th Feb 2009 at VIT University, Vellore.
The event was planned about a month and half ago, with lots of discussing on the agenda and the event plan, finally we confirmed our participation. During our discussion we estimated about 45 students to be registered, but as the registrations were open for Galileoscope workshop with in a short period there were over 60 registered participants. About two weeks later we were surprised to see over 120 people registered, hitting maximum participants for any event during SINC 09.
Myself ( Naveen LN) with other BAS volunteer members Vivek Y, Vishwakeerthy, Achyut and Alex set our journey to Vellore. We planned for our activity such that each one would handle independently a group of students during the observation. I was completely concentrating on my presentation and demonstrations. This was the first time where BAS was representing at a national level conference and outside Karnataka.
We reached VIT University at the lunch time, SINC 09 volunteers gave us a warm welcome and we proceeded towards for lunch. This was my second visit to VIT and I was surprised to see the difference in the last 10 year this organization has made.
Later we were taken to the guest house. I should appreciate the hospitality of the volunteers every thing was very well organized and done. Weather! its better I don’t comment on that, hot! While we spent some time discussing about my presentation, little did we know about the surprises coming up.
As we approached the conference hall, we were told the registrations had crossed 150 mark. I was mentally getting prepared to face that huge crowd. Vishwa, Vivek, Alex and Achyut starting setting up the telescopes, we had two telescopes for display and demonstration (Newtonian reflector and refractors).
The host once again gave a warm welcome to us and introduced BAS and its activities to all participants. As I put up my presentation on the projector, I could notice the participants leaning forward with interest. I started of my presentation and I was at my second surprise, every participant in the hall had seen and used a telescope. That made my topic a bit tougher, and has to be double sure on what I was talking about.
Introduction to telescopes, their history, types, working and finally grinding and assembling the telescopes were covered in my presentation. About 20 min were spent for answering the question of the participants, (a feedback from the participant said all questions were appropriately answered and they were happy) Couple of participants turned up after the presentation to share their feedback and also getting motivated for building their first telescope. Isn’t that what BAS wants… getting more people to astronomy.
With a short break I started off with my second presentation for the day. “Astrophotography, an art of collecting faint light” I used the astrophotos by the members of BAS and explained different methods. Fixed tripod, tracking, prime focus and more were discussed. Many question again and it was a very interactive session. Next we broke for the observation session and demonstration of Astrophotography on the roof top. Venus, Moon, Orion Nebula, Saturn and few star clusters were shown. Few participants used their camera and tried fixed tripod astrophotography.
We were given a memento after the event, lots of students talking to us and sharing their feeling and asking questions was common, in spite of declaring the end of the workshop. Our Instant BAS volunteer badges out did than what we expected. Thanks to Alex and Achyut for their timely creative thought.
The third surprise was the participation certificate featuring Bangalore Astronomical Society and its logo next to giant organizations like ISRO, Moon Society, SEDS India, Ham Radio and VIT. First BAS logo on a non-BAS organized event, distributed to participating from various places of India.
BAS logo and its collaboration were displayed on the big banners at various places of the campus; each banner attracted and surprised us. It was a pleasure to see our BAS Logo everywhere.
Sunday we took a look at the various building and activities of the VIT University. It’s a very well maintained and wonderful campus. Thanks to volunteer Vinodh for taking us across the campus and explaining us various things. Library was a very well maintained. Walker path with shade all over the campus, Canteen, food, lecture halls, auditorium and laboratories, hospitality, welcome were all good.
In all BAS made its presence felt at such a great program. Thanks to BAS volunteers Vishwakeerthy, Vivek, Alex and Achyut for doing their best during the outreach and overall helping me in giving a best presentation. I thank Vishnu Reddy for his time and help to prepare the quiz questions. Ravindra of ABAA for his support and guidance. All BAS Members and especially Satya for providing valuable inputs during the planning phase of this workshop,Finally BAS would like to thank SEDS-India, VIT University event organizers, Abhimitra,Snehal, Vidit, Sumit, Vinodh and others for considering BAS worth and potential candidates for such a grand workshop.
This marks yet another milestone achieved for BAS.
More photos shared at http://picasaweb.google.co.in/naveen.nanjundappa/SINC09Vellore#
Event co-ordinator : Naveen Nanjundappa.
We love night more than day, she is so lovely!
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Comments
hi,
On behalf of the SEDS India Executive Committee, I would like to thank you guys for a wonderful event.
Personally, I have been in touch with Amar Sharma (who also happens to be the guy who re-introduced me to the night sky).
I hope we get to have many more interactions in the future with each other.
Pradeep
This was the first National Level Conference which I attended. I gratefully thanks to Mr. Naveen L. N., Vice President of BAS, who gave me an opportunity to participate in SINC-09 National Conference which held in VIT campus, Vellore.
As you already read the report on this conference. I would like to share some of the experience which I had. Before going to the VIT campus, we actually planned our self in cab about the workshop. Naveen gave us details of workshop and also what work each person should do and some suggestion. This certainly helped us when we actually take part in workshop. It was a great pleasure to be with Naveen, Alex, Achyut and Vivek. As a whole team we enter the VIT campus.
Our Lecture time was arranged at 5:00pm. We got ready with everything. For me they gave the work of recording the video of lecture. I was sitting at the corner of the lecture hall by shooting the video and also listing the lecture.
As a learner of Astronomy, I should tell this. The way Naveen gave Introduction to the topics (Telescope Making and Astrophotography) and the way he presented his presentation was fantastic. I learned many things about Astrophotography and Telescope Making. More interestingly this ppt was not like just explaining the theory. It was full of practical ppt. He actually showed every part of the telescope, how would mirror look, what is secondary mirror, spiders, reflectors, refractors etc,. So this gave every student to involve in his presentation. At the end of the session, the way he interacted with the students and also the answers which he gave was excellent. Through this even I learnt how a person should prepare to give a lecture.
Then, we got our job, The Night Sky Observation. We took our telescope to the terrace and started our night sky observing show. Every students was very delighted to see moon (it’s crescent phase) and some students were telling us even they could see a craters on moon! And also they were asking some question regarding moon and other celestial object. We answered all those question in a good manner. Even they enjoyed the glimpness of Saturn, Venus and Orion Nebula. At 9:30pm we ended our show.
After this many students came and thanked us, which make us very happy.
I certainly say this that, by attending this National Conference I really learned many things and also I exchanged my knowledge of Astronomy with other students which felt me very happy.
Thanks to Vivek, Alex, Achyut and Naveen to giving me a good support and once again I would like to give a special thanks to Naveen L.N. to giving me a good opportunity to participate in Conference.
so BAS is on its path of glory.............
Rightly as mentioned in the report,it was a golden opportunity for us to present in a National conference attended by students from premier institutions all over India and guest speakers all over the world.It was smooth sailing from the time we started our journey towards VIT from Bangalore.The efforts of Naveen in ensuring that the activities go as planned were paid of from the beginning as we had a smooth joy ride to success.It was a proud moment to see our logo imprinted on each banner of the space exhibition along with the most reputable organizations in India.
We exactly started the presentation at 17:00 hrs and a distinguishing feature in the presentation were the pictures placed in it which gave the students a practical view how Telescopes can be made by a new beginner.We stuck to our time limit of 3 hrs to do the presentation but the number of questions that were being fired were amazing many.But appreciation must be given to Naveen for the way he collected all the queries and answered them to the audience so that we don't waste time on redundant queries and also the students go home satisfied with the knowledge obtained.It wasn't such an easy task to deliver a presentation to the students who had used a telescope and gained knowledge of astronomy through different events.
I guess that students had hardly ever seen such a practical session of telescope making,astrophotography and telescope making that spanned over a time of 3hrs.
Somehow relieving ourselves of the questions from the students we pushed to the terrace where there was a huge crowd waiting to see the objects with immense interest and also apply the knowledge they had just absorbed.
In all the events of outreach I have done I can safely say that this observation session was the smoothest ever we had handled.With 4 telescopes(2 reflectors+2 refractors) set up and each person handling a crowd of about 40-50 people we got the crowd to smoothly traverse all the telescopes comparing the size and the details visible for the objects through all the telescope.
The people just didn't stop there.Every object seen through the eyepieces were photographed to practically implement what they had heard during the session.There were tonnes of questions that were generated during the session.
What are the different parts of the telescope?
How do the settings change as altitude varies?
How to determine directions based on constellations?
Why do we see the crescent shape of Venus?
Many questions were about the difference between stars, planets and galaxies.etc etc....
It was a absolute pleasure answering them and showing it through the telescope so that they get to see what they haven't before.What more can I say,the event was nothing less than a grand success and it wouldn't have been possible without the undeterred efforts of Naveen and BAS.I hope many such conferences be held in future where BAS is the organization that will bring about the change to Amateur Astronomy.
In the field of astronomy With the growing success and participation in such prestigious events BAS is most definitely on its path to glory.
I must say - As far as Astronomy is concerned GALILEO SCOPE ( the workshop conducted by BAS at VIT ,Vellore ) was one of the best events I have seen and experienced.I throughly enjoyed being a part of the wonderful group that conducted the workshop. Every moment of the workshop was memorable , right from the time we designed our instant ID cards till the very end.I believe that every one who attended our workshop learnt something new and enjoyed it . I must congratulate all the those who made this a grand success especially Naveen for his excellent presentation , the way he handled the Astrophotography session was amazing .I thank Naveen for giving me the opportunity to be part of such a wonderful team and it would give me great pleasure to work with such a group again .
I really believe that "Amature Astronomy" is spreading fast and wide under BAS and I am sure we will be successful in reaching out to many more people in the future . Once again a hearty congratulations to BAS.
I had an amazing experience being part of the group for conducting "Galileoscope - Telescope Making" SEDS India SINC-09, VIT University . I would certainly thank mr.Naveen for provoding me this opportunity.
I think the report says it all expiriences we shared.The best part which i personally liked was the interaction session tha Naveen had.The questions they were throwing were precise , and at the same time Naveen came up with crisp answers which more than satisfied all. He unlike other professors collected all questions by various students and then answered them one by one so that nothing was missed and repeatance was avoided. this was supposed to happen in the Q & A session only , but it rather never stopped till end of observation which was indeed good to see.