Star struck: In the city of lights, these people prefer the dark

Astronomers’ group gives people a chance to be mesmerised by the night sky.

KARACHI:

Some people might still describe Karachi as the city of lights, but on Saturday night some of its residents discovered that more dazzling ones are dotted across the sky. The Karachi Astronomers’ Society organised an event at Zamzama Park to allow people to take a look at Saturn or get a glimpse of the moon like never before.

“Seeing the Milky Way is a spiritual experience,” said Zain Ahmed, an active member of the group. “Everybody should take a peek behind the wasted curtain of the city. We’re lucky that we don’t have to go too far to do this.”

The society had set up its equipment at the park. While many were there to look at stars, most of the society’s members spoke about their hobby passionately. “I devote all my time to astronomy, but sometimes I have to give a little time to my job,” quipped Muhammad Mehdi Hussain, who builds his own telescopes and works as a chief architect at a US-based software company in his ‘spare time’. Hussain said that he, his brothers and father build their own telescopes and have made three so far. They are currently working on a 16-inch telescope that he claims will be the biggest homemade one in the country.

The society was trying to raise awareness among children and help ignite a passion for the dark, said Ahmed. He lives in Gulshan and has been exploring the sky for 15 years. He said he was visiting the Zamzama park for the first time.

“I used the stars to get here,” Ahmed said. “They are actually like identification posts in the sky. You use landmarks on the ground to get places, and in a similar way, you can learn to navigate through identification markers in the sky.”

Ahmed said that he started looking at the sky through a pair of binoculars he found at home and wouldn’t have it any other way, since the instrument taught him how to map the sky before he even looked through a telescope nine years later.

The group organises trips to other places in Sindh and even Balochistan. Another member, Abbas Jafri, had brought his hi-tech computerised telescope. He said that astronomers in Pakistan are lucky. “The country is on the equator and we get to see the sky of the Northern Hemisphere as well as the Southern Hemisphere. Our ‘dark sky’ is outstanding – I have actually seen galaxies that are 2.9 million light years away with the naked eye,” he said as he recalled his first glimpse of Saturn from Karachi University’s state-of-the-art telescope. “I was so inspired that I couldn’t sleep for two days.”

Jafri’s own telescope was pointed towards Saturn to give the people a view of what inspired him many years back. This piece of equipment cost him over Rs100,000. It has its own software and GPS system which allows you to simply enter a point of interest in the sky and it automatically directs the scope in that direction. He says most people purchase telescopes from abroad and a basic one costs Rs10,000 while the more sophisticated models can cost more than ten times that amount.

“There is a lot of curiosity in Pakistan, but little awareness about astronomy,” said Jafri. “The upper class unfortunately does not teach their kids about this. People actually say, yeh kya asmaan ko dekhta rehta hai? (Why is he lazing around and looking at the sky?)” Jafri said that if you live in a flat and people see you with a telescope, it can get you into trouble because people might think you are a peeping tom.

He laughed as he narrated a story about how people used to think he was looking into their flats with his telescope, and not the sky, as if they were somehow more attractive.

The members of the society lamented the fact that there are no specialty stores in Pakistan that cater to people who are interested in astronomy.
Pollution, including light pollution, is another problem for astronomers in Karachi. The group said that this is due to ‘misdirected’ lights as opposed to just the abundance of lights in the city. Ahmed said that lights should all be facing downwards, but many of them are aimed straight and this makes it harder to achieve a dark sky.
The society urges all prospective astronomers to take a look at their website to share in their passion and join them on excursions. The web address is www.kaasts.com.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 28^th, 2012.