Our search for the perfect location around Karachi made us travel again; towards the west. New moon’s phase coinciding with the weekend of 9th and 10th October 2010 was chosen for the event. We had learnt many lessons from our previous astro trips. But ‘never a dull moment’ did it to us.
We started well but got late in making it to the proposed site. Hurried last minute search for the perfect observing site, resulted in deployment in the darkness. The first planned session which had involved observing and snapping the crescent Moon next to Venus slipped away from us. But even if had deployed in time, the thin layer of clouds would never have allowed us that opportunity. Against all probabilities, cloud played a hide-and-seek game with us.
Amidst these long waiting sessions for the clouds to clear an interesting past time emerged; horror stories. With darkness around us for miles in a strange locale, the stories had a frightening affect. The night was developing into more of a picnic fun than serious amateur astronomy session. Group astronomy requires planning and thrives on comradeship. With plans not working it was the comradeship that the Mud Volcano Trip brought out into the front.
Just as clouds did not show any signs of abating, we indulged in other camping activities. Food, tent settings, equipment discussions and horror stories. With nothing exciting in the sky, sleep ultimately doused many of us. The weather was warm, in fact hot and wind was surprisingly calm. Comparison with Karachi’s urban weather were drawn. In a light polluted environment, like Karachi, clouds would glow from underneath. But here they were dark, blocking the star light. Jupiter’s light had, surprisingly, made the foreground cloud layer glow. There would be no question of Jupiter size celestial object making a thin cloud layer glow in an urban location in Karachi.
But astronomy ventures are never complete failures. Cloudy nights, ironically, have more to teach than perfect nights. Firstly the oft neglected topics indirectly related to astronomy get to be the central topics. Secondly, ultimately the opportunity arrives. And thats what happened. When some of us had gone to sleep and when it was time for the last session of the night, the sky cleared up. Optics came to life. Cameras opened their shutters and objects started to be counted.
Comet Hartley 2, M81 and 82, Jupiter’s moons, Uranus, and many more objects were picked up, recognized, observed and wowed. Naveed, Imran, Zain, Mehdi, Abbas and all other colleagues did end up getting the maximum that could be taken from the trip. The triangular faint whitish ecliptic glow appeared in the east and was easily visible. The vertical light of ecliptic later changed to the horizontal light, the breaking of dawn and the night soon ended.
Written By: Khalid Marwat