A few hours back, I took a picture of the stunning sky left behind by a setting sun. The clouds were tinged with golden red even though the Sun was gone. One of the positives from the pandemic has been less pollution and consequently clearer skies.
Isn’t it a beautiful scene ? Very dramatic !
Now contrast this with the following pictures taken at 5.40 am today. These are of the setting Moon after a beautiful bright full moon night.
All the photographs look like paintings ! In a way they are Nature’s paintings.
As we watch these beautiful spectacles, our Indian astronomers have discovered “one of the farthest” star galaxies in the Universe !! How cool is that. Indian astronomy has always been far ahead. The Hindu “Panchangs” (calendar) clearly predict rains and other weather phenomenon besides keeping track of stars.
An excerpt from the above Times Of India article on the importance of this discovery.
I took a screen shot of a portion of the Saarvari Varusha Tamil Pambu Panchangam 2020-21 which gives the time of the Sunrise in different months.
Fascinating, right ? This is the Panchangam used by our families to figure out birthdays, anniversaries, festivals etc. Because of the lockdown, I haven’t managed to get this year’s panchangam for Amma but hopefully now it can get delivered.
An interesting anecdote
The legendary freedom fighter Bal Gangadhar Tilak was also an accomplished astronomer. He dated the Rigveda to 95000 years. A constellation of stars mentioned in the Rigveda occured 95000 years ago. Osho mentions this anecdote in one of his discourses ! India was still a British colony in those days. Some of the stars and planets hadn’t been discovered yet so, Tilak was laughed at.