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Monday, December 22, 2014

THE GEMINID METEOR SHOWER, AT LIONS POINT LONAVALLA

First got to thank NASA for their amazing work, and the information from their website. Now, we had some fun watching the coolest meteor shower of the year, I got the information of the event from the post that NASA shared on google+. I've always wanted to see one of these spectacles, but always got caught with something, or the skies that night provided poor visibility. This time we planned right, got my friend Justin to borrow his dad's car and called my friend Jonathan to help find a suitable place to watch here in Pune, we thought we might be able to get a view near the airforce base in Lohegaon but it was just too bright. The meteor shower was supposed to peak on the 13th and 14th of December we missed out on the 13th but witnessed this awesome stellar show on the 14th night, more than a 100 meteors every hour!! I was running out of wishes to make!

Here is some information about the geminids, got this information from NASA

Fast Facts
from 2012 geminid meteor shower courtesy earth and sky website.
  • Origin: 3200 Phaethon (an asteroid or a possible "rock comet")
  • Radiant: constellation Gemini
  • Active: 4-17 Dec. 2014
  • Peak Activity: 13-14 Dec. 2014
  • Peak Activity Meteor Count: Approximately 120 meteors per hour
  • Meteor Velocity: 35 km (22 miles) per second ( the fastest man made object is the VOYAGER space craft travelling at 11 miles per second!) 


The Geminids, which peak during mid-December each year, are considered to be one of the best and most reliable annual meteor showers. The Geminids did not start out that way. The Geminids first began appearing in the mid-1800s. However, the first showers were not noteworthy with only 10 - 20 meteors seen per hour. Since that time, the Geminids have grown to become one of the most major showers of the year. During its peak, 120 Geminid meteors can be seen per hour.
The Geminids are bright and fast meteors and tend to be yellow in color. Geminids are also known for their fireball meteors. Fireballs are larger explosions of light and color that can persist longer than an average meteor streak. This is due to the fact that fireballs originate from larger particles of material. Fireballs are also brighter, with magnitudes brighter than -3.

The night of December 14th we left for Lions point at Lonavalla which is 72Km out toward Mumbai, it is easily accessible by the expressway and should take less than an hour to get their. Lions point is perfect for star gazing, there is no lighting except natural lighting for miles. We reached at around 2100hrs had dinner and went to the viewing spot. The car had everything to make us comfortable a Maruthi Suzuki Ertiga is a great car. We had packed our cameras sleeping bags and some water, that night was pretty cold the temperature had dipped 7 degrees celsius in 24hrs to a nice chill 10 degrees celsius. Our photography skills were not good enough to capture a streaking meteor, but in our defence those meteors were really hard to catch on camera, and there was a third quarter moon which caused a little damping of the view, got some  photographs below, have fun!
from left to right: Justin, Me, Jonathan








Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Motorbiking to Mysore

Mysore the cultural capital of Karnataka, one of the most beautiful cities in India, I've been here on several occasions but always wanted to ride to it......
I had my dear friend Jonathan come down from Pune to accompany me, It was Jonathan's first time in Karnataka so it was only fitting that we visit Mysore. I was at the time working in Mangalore. 
We planned the ride on the 7th of june, the only problem about getting to mysore was that we would have to do it on an ancient 150cc motorbike which needless to say could roll over and die at any moment. So just in case I had it serviced and decided to take a leap of faith, Praying that my once lovely Suzuki Fiero would survive. It was the beginning of the monsoon and we knew the roads were gonna be pretty bad. Its a short ride of about 260Km from mangalore along the Madikeri route through some beautiful landscapes. I had cousins who had a home in Mysore so food and accommodation was taken care of. We packed the bare minimum and headed out.


The roads were nice to begin with and gradually worsened, our first stop would be in Madikeri, but we did stop in between just after the town of Sullia for a dip in the creek. The creek is a little hard to spot, the first time i saw the creek was in 2010 when we went for our university cricket tournament, since then its been a regular stop on the way to Mysore. Its a nice little break to cool your tired heels so i decided that Jonathan should see it too. 

We took our own jolly time trying not to stress the motorbike too much, since if it happened to fail it would be catastrophic to our fun. We reached Madikeri and had a nice hot lunch and then moved to our destination.
The road after Madikeri was pretty good except for the speed bumps which seemed to pop up with no warning repeatedly. We reached Mysore by 1600hrs and went straight to my cousins. The road took its toll on our butts, so happily slumped into the soft beds after a nice shower. That night we planned where we would visit,
1. Mysore Zoo, http://mysorezoo.info
2. Chamundi hills, open all year round
3. Mysore palace, http://www.mysorepalace.gov.in 
4. Railway museum
5. Sri rangapatnam
6. Karanji lake
7. Brindavan garden
8. St. Philomena's church
9. Golden temple (this is on the way from Madikeri at a place called Kushalnagar)


This is probably the most boring post yet,so I'm not gonna bore you too much.... try to enjoy!

Here's the tourism dept. link, everything you need to know will be found here http://www.mysore.nic.in/tourism.htm
The way to the creek

Add caption


This is me, not realizin my mobile phone is still in my pocket

This is me saying farewell to my phone and all my contacts

View from Raja's seat Madikeri




St.Philomena's church


Mysore Palace


View from atop Chamundi hills


Indian Gaur ( bison) wouldn't want to be cornered with this guy

Jonathan, in the zoo... he he

White rhino


I can't brain today, I gots the dumb....

KRS dam and Brindavan gardens
KRS dam
Musical fountain, it has potential to be real cool but to me it sucked
My cousins, from left: Sajan, aunty Jessy, Jithin, my friend Jonathan
Golden temple at Kushalnagar
Our ride the mighty Fiero, I call her Suzy. She did not fail us

Railway Museum