Please see the following:

http://nehruplanetarium.org/taarewiki/pmwiki.php?n=Site.GalileoAFilmByLilianaCav\
ani

Tomorrow evening is the finale of the Indo Italian Astronomy Fortnight.

It is going to be an interesting mix of Galileo, the Moon and the Pleiades
tomorrow evening - starting at 6 PM in the auditorium of Nehru Memorial Museum
and Library.

There is the screening of a recently restored version of a 1969 film on Galileo
by Liliana Cavani - the film will be with English subtitles.

As it happens, there is the Lunar occultation of Atlas (one of the Pleiades)
happening at the same time!

Ajay and Vikrant are working towards a possible live feed from a small telescope
- to be placed inside the auditorium - for simultaneous viewing of the
occultation along with the film.

It will be an interesting mix, as observations of the Moon and the Pleiades -
both have IYA significance and all in all such an evening - with Galileo, the
Moon and the Pleiades seems a very IYA thing to do :-)

Rathnasree, Nehru Planetarium, New Delhi

The celebrations of the International Year of Astronomy are going to be followed
immediately by countrywide activities related to the centenary celebrations of
Nobel Laureate Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, who was born on the 19th of October
1910.

For interested Delhiites in this week, a common meeting point of these two
celebrations will be at the Nehru Planetarium, Nehru Memorial Museum and
Library.

As a part of the ongoing Indo Italian Astronomy Fortnight celebrations, there
will be discussions and a screening of two films on Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
at the Nehru Planetarium, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, in collaboration
with the Italian Embassy, Italian Cultural Center, Delhi University and the
Akshara Theatre.

The films are : "Two and Two" by Gopal Sarman, which features live interviews of
Chandrasekhar, and "Chandra – the Journey of a Star" an Italian film in English,
written by Guiseppe Mussarab and directed by Enrico Agapito

The screening of the films will begin at 11:30 AM, on the 29th of November, and
will be followed by discussions and question answer sessions on the works of
Chandrasekhar, co-ordinated by Prof. Patrick Das Gupta and Professor Amitabh
Mukherjee, Department of Physics and Astrophysics, Delhi University.

The other highlight of the ongoing Indo Italian Fortnight, ahead, is the
screening of the film on Galileo made by Liliana Cavani, at 6 PM on the 1st of
December 2009, at the Auditorium of Nehru Memorial Museum and Library.

The Indo-Italian Fortnight being celebrated at the Nehru Planetarium, is also a
part of the 120th birth centenary celebrations of Jawaharlal Nehru, the Nehru
Imprint at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library. An exhilarating Dhanak Din Bal
mela will be enticing children to the Teen Murti Campus of the Nehru Memorial
Museum and Library, on the 28th and 29th of November, as a part of the Nehru
Imprint celebrations.


Rathnasree, Nehru Planetarium, New Delhi

Nice to see your activities Dr. Rathna !

Best wishes and good luck,

K. Sinha

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Windows 7: Simplify what you do everyday. Find the right PC for you.
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Tomorrow (Saturday) at 5 PM, there is a public lecture at the Planetarium, under
the Godhooli Public lecture series - titled "Journey through the Galaxy", by
Prof. Tomaso Belloni, Observatorio de Brera, Italy.

This is a part of the Indo Italian Astronomy Fortnight.

I hope all interested amateur astronomers and students will come for the public
lecture.

Some details are here

http://nehruplanetarium.org/taarewiki/pmwiki.php?n=Site.JourneyThoughTheGalaxy

And details of the rest of the fortnight, are here:

http://nehruplanetarium.org/taarewiki/pmwiki.php?n=Site.IndoItalianAstronomyFort\
night

Rathnasree, Nehru Planetarium, New Delhi

Tomorrow (16th November) evening, at 6PM will be the inauguration of the Indo
Italian Astronomy Fortnight at the Nehru Planetarium, New Delhi. Everyone from
Delhi, please do try and come, it is going to be a very very beautiful program,
resonating with the spirit of IYA!

I have been working really hard, co-ordinating a lot of things for this and have
not been able to post here about the program - I was waiting for the wbepages
here

http://nehruplanetarium.org/taarewiki/pmwiki.php?n=Site.IndoItalianAstronomyFort\
\
night

about the program to be finalised.

THe following are some quick details:


(Inauguration on the 16th November, at 6 PM at the Nehru Planetarium, by the
Italian Ambassador H.E. Roberto Toscano)

( The inaugural program (as all the other prgrams too) promises to be an
exhilirating multidisciplinary celebration of Astronomy!)

To celebrate the International Year of Astronomy and the Italian "Year of
Galileo", an Indo Italian Astronomy Fortnight titled "From Galileo to Modern
Frontiers" is being organised at Delhi from the 16th of November to the 1st of
December 2009. The fortnight is being organised through the collaboration
between the Italian Embassy, the Italian Cultural Center, Nehru Memorial Museum
and Library, Nehru Planetarium, University of Delhi, Vigyan Prasar (Department
of Science and Technology), Fondazione Centro Sperimentale di
Cinematografia-Cineteca Nazionale, La Fenice Theatre (Venice), The Anad
Foundation, the Science Popularisation Association of Communicators and
Educators (S.P.A.C.E., an NGO), the Amateur Astronomers Association, Delhi, and
Prof. Toni Hildebrandt.

A number of exhilirating and creative activities are a part of the Indo Italian
Astronomy Fortnight. The fortnight will be inaugurated with an interdisciplinary
celebration of Astronomy : An evening with Music, Art and Astronomy, to be
inaugurated by the Italian Ambassador, H.E. Mr. Roberto Toscano, in the presence
of Prof. Mridula Mukherjee, Director, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, on the
16th of November at 6 PM at the sky theatre of the Nehru Planetarium.

This program under the stars of the planetarum sky theatre, has many interesting
creative elements : listening to sounds from celestial objects like pulsars,
Jupiter and the Sun, and viewing of celestial images reminiscent of nature
imitating van Gogh's art.
There will be the inauguration of a photo exhibition showing many examples from
classical and modern Italian art which have influences from Astronomy.

And finally, the inaugural session will have the very interesting musical
evening under the planetarium stars, presenting a Concert titled "The Time of a
Star" by Sara Michieletto and Bhai Baldeep Singh, with an interesting jugalbandi
of celestial sounds with Italian and Indian music.

This multidisciplinary celebration of Astronomy will be followed by a scientific
Indo Italian workshop at the Delhi University on the Physics and Astrophysics in
the vicinity of compact objects, organised by Prof. Patrick Das Gupta,
Department of Physics and Astrophysics. Prof. Tomaso Belloni from the National
Institute of Astrophysics, Astronomical Observatory of Brera, Italy, will speak
about the Galactic Compact Objects as Laboratories for the Physics of the
Extreme, during this workshop. The workshop will be held on the 18th of November
from 2 PM to 5:30 PM at the department of Physics and Astrophysics.

The fortnight also has a very interesting country wide video conferencing
workshop on assembling and using Galileoscopes. Utilising the Vigyan Prasar
Edusat network, the fortnight includes sessions dealing with assembling simple
telescopes and discussions on their usage to enable children to view the
inspiring views that had been seen for the first time by Galileo - the craters
on the Moon, moons of Jupiter, the phases of Venus and the rings of Saturn.
From the International Galileoscope project, through the Tech Museum of
Innovation, San Jose, USA, 20 international quality Galileoscopes have been
received by the planetarium, 10 of which have been distributed to groups
affiliated to the edusat centres around the country. The video conference is an
exhilirating opportunity of sharing the nitty gritties involved in assembing and
using these telescopes.

An exciting event to look forward to, is the screening of Bertold Brecht's play
on Galileo, at the Akshara Theatre, on the 27th of November, at 7 PM. The play
will be performed by the artistic ensemble of the Akshara Theare comprising of
celebreties like Jalabala Vaidya, Gopal Sharman, Sunit Tandon, Rajiv Chandran
and Geeta Chandran.

There will be screening of films Subrahmanyam Chandrasekhar, a film directed by
Gopal Sharman, and an Italina film in English, directed by Enrico Agapito, and
discussions for students on the works of Chandrasekhar at the Nehru Planetarium,
at 11:30 AM on the 29th November. The discussions will be co-ordinated by Prof.
Patrick Das Gupta and Prof. Amitabh Mukherjee, of Delhi University.

The conclusion of the fortnight will be a screening of an Italian film (with
English subtitles) on Galileo, made by Liliana Cavani, at the auditorium of
Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, at 6 PM on the 1st of December.

Rathnasree, Nehru Planetarium, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi

Tomorrow, from 9:30 AM - 1:00 PM, will be the workshop, at Nehru Planetarium,
New Delhi, on Epsilon Aurigae - aimed towards learning to contribute with Naked
eye and DSLR camera magnitude estimates of Epsilon Aurigae, to AAVSO and the
Citizen Sky project.

The workshop and some related pages are here

http://nehruplanetarium.org/taarewiki/pmwiki.php?n=Site.WorkshopForAmateurObserv\
ationsOfEpsilonAurigae

http://nehruplanetarium.org/taarewiki/pmwiki.php?n=Site.FollowingEpsilonAurigaeF\
romIndia

Personally, I found the learning that I was doing - preparing for the workshop -
exhilirating fun.

We could treat making a few magnitude estimates of Epsilon Aurigae as a
beginning towards going for many possible quantitative projects with limited
equipment - something that will always be of interest to students looking for
quantitative projects in Astronomy.

I hope all those interested, who are from Delhi, will come for the workshop
(they will be very welcome) and those unable to come will view the webcast and
send in comments.

The sky segments - which will include some sky discussions at the beginning and
some magnitude estimates of sky theater stars (to test, how well a 30 year old
Car Zeiss planetarium machine depicts relative star magntudes) - will mean dark
video - hardly anythng visible - but, hopefully good quality sound transmission
- which will transmit also, the fun element of this activity.

The poweprpoint lecture segments will not be so dark.

I will post with some more details, if I get the time. If I do not update
anymore : those wishing to see the webcast should search for "rathnasree" at
Ustream.tv and this broadcast is titled "Workshop on Epsilon Aurigae"

I do hope many amateur astronomers will participate in this project - some may
already have made contributory amateur observations and submitted data on
variable stars. If so, it would be so useful if they would come in to the
chatroom of the Usteam broadcast and put in some useful pointers.

The workshop itself is an ongoing learning process for the speakers as well as
the participants and it seems quite fun, this way.

Rathnasree, Nehru Planetarium, New Delhi