After we had offered Isha's namaz, we decided to have the dinner break. The guys who were without families had brought food stuff from our homes while food for the folks with families had been ordered at the STDC restaurant.
I and three other guys dined on a table overlooking the lake. The Moon was still far from setting, but had gone quite low. It was difficult to resist shooting the scene, but due to the difference in the brightness of the Moon and the starry night, the shots we took failed to capture the atmosphere.
Now I was back in the observing field.
Did you know that stars are born? That's correct. Allah Pak creates them in huge clouds of dust and gas called nebulae. The Orion Nebula I mentioned earlier is one such stellar nursery.
After living extremely long lives lasting billions of years, stars run out of fuel (hydrogen) and die. Depending on their size, their death throes are different. The most massive stars explode violently at the end of their lives and shatter themselves in what we call a supernova. In 1054 AD, Muslim and Chinese astronomers recorded one such explosion. It was so bright it was visible in daylight. The explosion left behind a cloud of debris now known as the Crab Nebula. This was the object I observed next with the 18".
Even though it's so many years since the progneitor star exploded, the Crab Nebula is still expanding outwards at about 1,500 km/s! This was the first time I saw the object.
