May be you're wondering "does nightfall not happen in cities?". It sure does. About two hundred years ago, the beauty of the night sky was sort of sacred everywhere. But then came electricity. Not a bad thing at all in itself, but it was accompanied by misdirected outdoor lighting. That resulted in light pollution. Mark my words please. Light pollution is not an inevitable or unavoidable side effect of urban development and growth. No. It is simply caused by badly aimed outdoor lighting, which can shine light upwards into the sky (and therefore waste our already scarce and expensive resource, electricity) rather than on to the ground and and other terrestrial objects it is supposed to illuminate.
Ever heard of the city of Flagstaff, AZ? This is how the sky is just 10km from the central portion of the city:
All thanks to properly directed outdoor lighting. That is what you call Roshnion ka Shehar. But anyway. The fact is, most cities in the world presently have badly aimed lighting, so believe it or not, thousands of people travel to remote places of the planet in the quest of dark skies every year. Pakistan Alhamdulillah has lots of them. But like most of the country's daytime sightseeing, opportunities for astro-toursim under our pristine skies have largely been unexplored. Too bad. You might want to check out this link. Just for the fun of it, replace the word India with Pakistan in it.
Ok. Back to the topic. We had been planning a night stay with Pakistan's biggest telescope, whose light-gathering element is 18" wide, somewhere nearer to home as the first destination. After two years, we Alhamdulillah finally succeeded this past weekend (20 - 21 February 2010). Not a big deal for the gurus at PakWheels - 120km to Lake Kalri - but as a first step, it was more than enough for us. As an avid stargazer, this was the first time in 12 years that I saw skies any darker than Karachi's.
The daytime trip was pretty ordinary. Our four cars and a 5-door Landcruiser gathered at Malir Cantt by 12 on the 20th. After loading the 18" telescope into the Landcruiser and having offered Zuhar salah, we started off to Kalri via the national Highway. We had smaller scopes, a binoscope and some binoculars with us too.
Fast forward to around 4:30pm, and all of us were at our STDC resthouses. We started unpacking and setting up at once.
The wooden something is the big telescope, waiting to be assembled. Note the removable wheels on the left. These can be screwed to the scope to move it around the observing field if needed. And you thought bikes and cars were the only PakWheels, eh?!
Done . . .
. . . and waiting for night fall . . .
I'll Insha Allah try to be back with more followups.
Zain
