PUNE: The Maharashtra leg of the national campaign on comet International Scientific Optical Network (ISON) started on Tuesday with a workshop for science communicators at the SM Joshi Hall.
Demonstrations of simple experiments in astronomy, sessions on how to observe the comet in the early morning sky and lectures were held during this day-long workshop.
The campaign titled 'Eyes on ISON' is being coordinated in the city by a number of popular science groups, astronomy clubs, reputed institutions like the Inter-university Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics among others.
The campaign is mainly a consortium of astrophysicists, amateur astronomer s, science activists and artist-designers who have come together for a mass campaign on the comet's trail. It includes generating open-source digital resource material, conducting country-wide workshops and plans to work towards incorporating learning science in schools.
Niraj Ramanujam of the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA) said, "Eyes on ISON is a nation-wide campaign on the comet which is expected to be visible to the naked eye in the morning sky an hour before dawn from October-end to January-end 2014. Scientists do not know yet how bright it will be, but some predict that it will become very bright, with a long tail."
The national campaign aims to reach out to 15 to 20 million school students across the country. Resource material on the campaign is also available on www.eyeson cometison.in. has also been prepared with contents of the workshops, demonstrations and information on the comet. the re-source material has also been made available for free access on a dedicated website for the campaign, which is www.eyesoncometison.in.
Ramanujam said, "Following this workshop, the participants will be organising workshops in schools and public spaces in their respective districts. These district workshops will lead to public events on the ground, in schools and other public places which include
Astronomy festivals, sky watching camps, poster exhibitions are some of the things planned."
For the Maharashtra leg of this campaign, the organisers have prepared the resource material in Marathi. The two-day workshop will end on Wednesday with a public event where eminent astrophysicist Jayant Narlikar will speak on the topic - an experiment test of astrology, followed by a panel discussion and a question-answer session. It will be held at the C ollege of Engineering, Pune auditorium between 5 and 7pm.
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