Saturday, May 23, 2009

Following STS-125 (Hubble servicing mission 4)

I have been interested in astronomy since last 4-5 years but never followed it astutely.
My interest more so was in Cosmology rather than direct astronomy.
This interest resurfaced with zeal and vigour as I was disturbed that I did not have any other activity, be it art, sport,music etc, to indulge in outside of my work domain.

This culminated in me attending astronomy public outreach programs conducted by Khagol Mandal ,Mumbai . It was a great experience to pinpoint the constellations and stars.

I had earlier seen the images from Hubble Telescope. This time with more interest I was in awe after I read up on Hubble. To match this the servicing mission 4 for the Hubble, STS-125 wstarted in May 09. The servicing mission proposed to replace the aging instruments on Hubble with newer advanced instruments.
This would enhance the longevity of the Hubble Space Telescope and it would run for another 5- years. The mission is numbered as STS-125.
It has been exciting to follow the mission status with the progress of the servicing and the spacewalks. As of this writing the repair mission has been completed successfully and the shuttle Atlantis with the 7 member crew is preparing to land at Kennedy Space Centre.
The status can be followed on the various links below

http://twitter.com/NASA
http://twitter.com/HubblePAO
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/hst_sm4/index.html

Also there is great coverage of STS-125 on CBS news

Friday, January 23, 2009

The day I travelled to Airavali

It was by chance that I noticed the destination on my train ticket. I was travelling to Airavali my workplace. Never thought Airoli ( a suburb of Navi Mumbai) was known by this name.
The Indian Railways site for Season ticket booking also lists Airoli as Airavali.

Wish it was some mythological destination rather than the dusty, concrete jungle that it is