A celestial storm in a teacup

HAKDHARPUR (Gurgaon), November 18: Switch off the lights,'' yelled a bespectacled star-gazer as a motorist manoeuvered his vehicle through...

HAKDHARPUR (Gurgaon), November 18: “Switch off the lights,” yelled a bespectacled star-gazer as a motorist manoeuvered his vehicle through the narrow dirt track between the fields. “Our work will get ruined if these people keep driving into this place with their headlights blazing. The lights hamper the viewing and recording of the celestial shower,” explained Vivek, a mechanical engineer by profession who is also a keen student of astronomy.

Covered in pitch darkness, the obscure village of Hakdharpur — about 65 km from Gurgaon — had never seen such hubbub. Vehicles kept rolling in kicking up clouds of dust and causing traffic snarls. Excited youngsters and elders headed straight to the open village fields to witness the celestial fireworks. One of the reasons given why this remote village was chosen was that it was close to the epicentre of this celestial storm thus providing a good view. Moreover, experts had apparently predicted that western disturbances will blur the sky over Delhi.

A 30-member team of the Amateur Astronomers Association from the Capital were the first ones to camp. With binoculars and cameras trained towards the sky, these enthusiasts preferred lying down on the ploughed field braving the midnight chill and dew. Even as the temperature dropped to 12 degrees Celsius, it proved no deterrent for students from the Nehru Planetarium from staring into space till the wee hours of the morning.

Apart from the studious, serious lot was an entire set of cosmic watchers who were there for the sheer fun of this rare visual treat.

If there were telescopes, high-powered binoculars, LSR cameras and frequency-monitoring equipment on one side, the other camp had to be content with viewing the sky through the naked eye or at the most, ordinary binoculars. Besides the occasional murmur there was hardly any noise from the camp of “serious-watchers”, while the frenzied enthusiasts clapped, hooted and whistled at every sighting.

“I have managed to see seven stars’. I wish we had sophisticated equipment too to get a better view,” said Mohit of St. Xaviers School, Paschimpuri, pointing at the amateur professionals. “We had camped at around 10.30 pm and the meteoric shower started at around 1.20 am,” claimed Vivek, an Amateur Astronomer.

There were disappointed souls too who had driven all the way from Delhi expecting an incessant stream of fireworks but instead got to see occasional, stray flashes. “The view is not vastly different from here. We would have seen the same back in Delhi,” said Bobby Chawla, who had come here all the way from Rajouri Garden.

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The sky-gazers had managed to wake up a few in this sleepy hamlet who joined the crowd but could not understand why that occasional flash in the sky was sending the crowds into transports of delight. And even as one disappointed cavalcade of vehicles drove out, another serpentine queue of cars with excited occupants made its way into the hamlet.