Rare celestial feast in Tambaram

Jun 07, 2012 - N. Arun Kumar |

chennai

Tags:

Tamil Nadu

For the first time, about 1,000 children and their parents in suburban Tambaram had the opportunity to view the Venus transit in their neighbourhood with live updates by amateur (ham) radio operators from various parts of the city.

In the past astronomy, enthusiasts had to go to Birla planetarium in Kotturpuram to watch any celestial event and with thousands of people in city congregating there it became difficult for them to enjoy any event, Balu Saravana Sarma, coordinator of Tambaram astronomy club said on Wednesday.

“Keeping this in mind, we had organised the event in Tambaram. We have spent lakhs of rupees to buy a few telescopes and astronomical goggles for people to see the sun with utmost safety,” he said.

More than 20 ham radio operators in the city were busy updating people about the event through the Chennai ham radio repeater (145.675 Mhz frequency).

“I have to travel about 20 km to the planetarium, which makes it difficult for me to go on a regular basis,” said K. Shruthi, a Class VI student who was busy witnessing the Venus transit.

“I will be happy if astronomical clubs in the city make such arrangements during such event. it will be of great help to youngsters like me to develop our passion in astronomy,” said C. Satish, another young astronomy enthusiast.

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