National Science Day (February 28, 2008)
Raman Effect was discovered on February 28, 1928. Since the 1980s the day is celebrated as the National Science Day. This year was the 80th anniversary of the great discovery. As per government directive, the Institute observed it as an Open Day. Nearly 500 school and college students from Bangalore participated in the festivities on that day.From 9.30 in the morning to 8.30 in the evening IIA had a steady stream of enthusiastic visitors.
The Ministry of Science & Technology, Govt. of India, chose 'Understanding Planet Earth' as the theme for this year's Science Day. Keeping in mind the theme, an exhibition of posters on Water, Air, Ice, Ocean and Space was put up for the visitors. Models of our premier telescopes in Kavalur and Hanle were displayed. A special attraction was a desk-top model of the TAUVEX payload and posters describing its science objectives. Children were keen on knowing about weather patterns, global warming, and the phenomenon of La Ni~na. The scientist-volunteers were kept on their toes throughout the day responding to the eager queries of the youngsters.
In the lawns, a coelostat arrangement was put up tracking the Sun in the sky. A large image of the Sun was focussed on a white board kept inside a tent for visitors to see. A quiz programme on Sunspots was conducted. Unfortunately, the current period being near the solar minimum, sunspots were hard to come by. The box spectroscope designed by the IIA scientists for easy viewing of the solar spectrum was made available to the children who had a gala time looking through it at the continuous spectrum as well as the Fraunhofer lines. The two-element radio interferometer was also set up and the signal from it was displayed in an adjoining room where a team of radio astronomers explained the instrument and the radio studies of the Sun. Students from the engineering colleges were excited about this particular experiment and asked many questions.
Four popular talks were scheduled, three in the morning for the school children and one in the afternoon for the college students. The main auditorium on the first floor and the large seminar room on the ground floor were overflowing with people in the morning, when Dipankar Banerjee and Nimisha Kantharia spoke respectively on the Sun-Earth Connection and Galaxies. They had to speak twice, once at each venue and even then some schools had to miss, as there was just not enough place for children to even stand in the two rooms. The morning programme was brought to a close with a wonderful show organised by Edwin Ebenezer of pictures of telescopes and the Sun, especially three-dimensional images of the Sun obtained with STEREO. Ebenezer took trouble to make special plastic viewers to see the 3-D effects of the images and distributed them to the audience at the beginning of the session. The children were thrilled watching the three-dimensional Sun displayed on the big screen in the auditorium.
In the afternoon, Prajval Shastri gave a talk titled 'Harnessing gravity -- shining black holes and growing galaxies'. It was a richly illustrated powerpoint presentation covering some of the latest observations and theoretical speculations on a theme of immense current interest. This was followed by a question and answer session by the college students.
Later in the evening, the sky-watch programme got under way on the terraceof the Main Laboratory Annexe. A 14-inch Meade Telescope was set up for viewing the night sky. Although the skies had a light haze, Saturn, Mars and the GreatNebula in Orion could easily be seen in their splendour. About 70 peoplelined up for the direct viewing. The Science Day festivities were brought to a close around 10 PM after the last visitors had a look through the telescope. The administrative staff of IIA arranged for snacks and light refreshments through the day. A team of more than two dozen scientists, students and technical staff helped in putting up the scientific programme for the day and from the grateful responses of the visitors it appeared that the show went off well.
-- D. C. V. Mallik
Open days (August 9 & 10, 2007)
An exhibition of posters on the Sun, Space Weather and Solar-terrestrial relationships was set up as a theme exhibition celebrating IHY 2007. A special attraction was the STEREO image of the Sun which could be viewed in 3D using special glasses which were made available to the viewers. Also on display were models of our major telescopes and posters and a model of the TAUVEX payload.
A two-element radio interferometer for observations of the Sun and other strong sidereal radio sources was also set up and proved to be a a major attraction, particulary to the science students from colleges. Two dipole antennas were placed in the volley-ball court outside and the electronics and the display system were set up in the Exhibition Hall. The radio astronomers of IIA described the instrument and showed the interference fringes formed by the Sun. The weather co-operated and at one stage even the Sun obliged -- there was an intense radio emission which was easily caught on the instrument.
The simple box spectroscope rigged up earlier by the IHY Public Outreach group has now been made available for distribution. The spectroscope can be used to view the spectrum of a terrestrial light source or of the Sun. The visitors to the exhibition had an opportunity to use this spectroscope.
Out in the open, Navnirmiti of Mumbai set up their low-cost no-cost toolswith simple demonstrations on how to measure the Universe with a string and a stone. Among the tools used were the Ball and Mirror Solar Projector, Pinhole Projector and the Sun Card, and the Very Long Focal Convex Lens Projector. The school students were enthralled by the simple experiments.
We had also arranged for a continuous film show in the auditorium where the film `Hubble - 15 Years of Discovery', presented by Bob Fosbury on behalf of ESA, was shown.
The two Popular Talks:
Title: Sunderstanding - the Sun as a learning resource for universalising science
Speaker: Dr Vivek Monteiro (Navnirmiti, Mumbai)
Title: Science from Space: 50 years of Space Flight
Speaker: Prof. Jayant Murthy
NATIONAL SCIENCE DAY (28 FEBRUARY 2007)
Open Days (Kodaikanal Observatory)
Visitors are welcome to see the museum at the Kodaikanal Observatory of IIA on all Fridays between 10.00-12.00 hrs. During the peak tourist season in Kodaikanal, that is between 15 March to 15 June, the museum is open everyday between 10.00-12.00 hrs., and 14.00-16.00 hrs.
Besides the above arrangement, students from different colleges all over the country are welcome to visit the museum and the Spectro section of the observatory on prior appointment all through the year between 10.00-12.00 hrs. andin the afternoon 14.00-16.00 hrs. With prior arrangement with the Observatory staff, visitors are also welcome to view the night sky through the 8 inch telescope. However, owing to shortage of staff, night time viewing is rather restricted at present.