Stargazing trips get creative: Unique sessions attract diverse enthusiasts, connecting local heritage with celestial wonders | Chennai News

Study the architecture of the Natarajar temple in Chidambaram in the afternoon, get a lowdown on the Pichavaram mangrove forests in the evening and top it off gazing at the Milky Way through a telescope by night. Or how about attending a book reading session in the evening and stargazing at night? These might sound like unlikely combinations, but stargazing enthusiasts are trying out different ways to get people interested in the hobby.“We have had musical stargazing trips where we invite musicians to play under the night sky and then go on to stargazing. We recently had a trip with singers Pradeep Kumar and Kalyani Nair. Once we even had a stargazing trip with singer Chinmayi in Masai Mara in Kenya and later in Iceland and Vietnam,” says Bavanandhi Babulal, founder of StarVoirs, a startup which organises stargazing tours. “We have also had book reading sessions where we recently invited writer Soumya Ashok to speak about her book on archaeology in Tamil Nadu before stargazing at night. Participants will also speak about their favourite books under the stars. We also had puppetry, storytelling and bird watching sessions combined with stargazing. A poetry reading session under the night sky is on the anvil.”More recently, heritage walking group Madras Inherited had a two-hour immersive experience, focusing on historical and cultural aspects of Chidambaram and the Pichavaram mangrove forests, ending with a stargazing session. “Stargazing won’t work much in Chennai, so the nearest point we could think of was Chidambaram,” says Ashmitha Athreya of Madras Inherited.Naveen H, a product manager from the Andamans attended a musical stargazing trip recently intrigued by the pairing. “I loved it,” says Naveen. “The musicians travelled with us. You get to meet people from different walks of life whom you won’t meet otherwise. In the process, you get to explore new landscapes and offbeat trails, local culture and cuisine, talk to the local people and understand their way of life.” Naveen has also tried stargazing with boardgames.In Chennai, you get to see only the moon and a few planets but in areas with no light pollution, you get to see deep sky objects such as open clusters, Crab Nebula and Andromeda, he says.This is the ideal time to see the Milky Way, the pole star and the constellations throughout the night, says Bhavanandhi. “We look at the Milky Way core first through the naked eye and then the more faraway objects through a 16-inch telescope. We look for galaxy clusters, deep sky objects and double stars.”To get school children interested in stargazing, the group has been donating telescopes to schools run by NGOs, and have given away 17 telescopes so far, in the past two years. “We find schools where the teachers are interested in showing the night sky to students through telescopes and train the teachers so that they don’t need our help for stargazing. Except for a few which are gathering dust, all the rest are actively using the telescopes.” At a school in Tiruvannamalai, for example, they have a monthly stargazing session which the children participate in, besides one in Gudalur run by the Adivasi Munnetra Sangam.