Celebrating Jugad Instrumentation for taking Astronomy to the People
Tentative dates of the Meeting 27th to 29th of March 2009
This meeting is inspired by, and wishes to celebrate, the efforts of all those who are out there on the roadside or in parks, sharing views of celestial objects with the passers by, using their own handmade telescopes.
- There is Yogesh Bhai from Surat, who had never travelled far from Surat, and built his Prithvi Telescope (seen in the photograph above) from material that he obtained from his neighbourhood and has been using it for the benefit of school students in his neighbourhood.
- There is the Beesinchi Balti - a 20" telescope built by Ajay Talwar frequently being used by amateur astronomers for their sky observaions.
- There are the amateur astronomers from Bangalore and Mumbai, who seem to be doing amazing astrophotography with hand tracking.
- There are the groups of amateur astronomers from Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Goa, Gujrat, Kerala and so many other areas, with a passionate zest for sharing their interest in the skies and their equipment, with anyone on the street.
It is this madness of an amateur astronomer that is the inspiration for this meeting. The operative words here are "Jugad Instrumentation" and "Taare Sadak Par". Jugad is a North Indian word that seems to have been coined to mean any hand waiving solution obtained to overcome difficulties with standard equipment or solutions. So much of innovative instrumentation by amateur astronomers comes under the category that they refer to, affectionately, as Jugad solution.
And it is precisely this spirit of the amateur astronomer, which allows them to share with anyone on the street, their love for the skies, and help the passers by view celestial objects with a little bit of aperture that they have lovingly ground and put together. It is precisely this spirit which would help reach the 99.99999 percent of the population of India which might yet not have seen the views of celestial objects through telescopes, that Galileo did, 400 years ago.
This is planned as a meeting for educators, amateur astronomers, students and anyone interested in discovering the Universe for themselves and sharing the joy of this discovery with those around them.
Tentative Program for the meeting:
Grass Roots Celebrations of the Sky
Instrumentation for the serious amateur astronomer
Inspiring Jugad Instrumentation from the field of professional Astronomy?
To Register for the Workshop, please enter your expression of interest on this page