Astronomy Camp with Vijay Kapoor

Astronomy camp is the latest buzz word in parenting circle. It had been quite some time, we were planning to attend an astronomy camp. Ultimately we decided to attend one with Vijay Kapoor in Feb 2019 at Chiguru Farm.
This article covers the following topics

Astronomy Camp

Misc

Vijay Kapoor

Vijay is a multi talented personality. He is an astronomy enthusiast, Photographer, Artist, marathon runner, etc. The list is endless. By profession Vijay is an IT Professional.

Vijay runs astronomy camps in Chiguru Farm on weekends. He has hosted a telescope in Prestige Shantiniketan apartment complex multiple times on multiple astronomical events such as eclipse, bloody moon, planets spotting etc.
Vijay ventured into astronomy 5 years back. He has completed few short course from various international Universities.

Best season for planets and star gazing:

Ideally from November to February as the skies are clear.
However, there are few very clear nights in Summers also.

Location

The astronomy camp is conducted in Chiguru Farm, Bilikal Forest, near Kanakpura. This place is approximately 70-80 km drive from Whitefield Bangalore. And takes around 2 and half hours from Prestige Shantiniketan, Whitefield to reach by car.

Chiguru Farm

Chiguru means tender, fresh leaves in Kannada and is an apt name for an organic farm venture. The Chiguru farm is owned and run by Raghu who has ventured in organic farming after a successful career as an IT professional. The place was a banana plantain farm initially. Raghu has converted the place into multi crop ( vegetables, crops and fruits) farm which can yield multi seasonal crops throughout the year. Raghu has hired local cooks to preserve the identity of the local culture. This also helps the local villagers with side income.

Accommodation:

Rooms:

Chiguru Farm has few rooms available and they need to be booked in advance.

Tents:

Most of the participants opt for tent stay for the astronomy camp. Vijay provides you tents, sleeping bags, tent mats/bed and tent lamp at very nominal cost. We owned one tent for many years and had never used it in India. Our 9 years old son was very excited to unfold & setup tent for the first time. So we had carried our own tent.

Things to carry:

Light jackets as it becomes cold at night and the farm is surrounded by wilderness.
Shorts or three fourths for day time and full pants specially for kids at night.
Set of clothes to change for next day
Light snacks for munching if any
bottled water is provided at the farm. However you can carry your own supply
Medical kit and medicines if any
Torch
Toothpaste and tooth brush and other toiletries.

Lunch and pottery session

Previous evening, Vijay sent us pictures of the telescope and other apparatus packed in case. My son was super excited to see the telescope. It is recommended to leave Whitefield Bangalore at around 10 am. As we crossed electronic city and entered the rural area we could see many farms and small villages. The camp begins at around 1 pm in noon, with a sumptuous organic vegetarian lunch. We being hardcore non-vegetarian, were a little skeptical about the vegetarian food option. However, Raghu and his team of cooks proved us wrong. Some of the local kandadiga savouries were finger smacking good. Post the lunch, we strolled around the farm for sometime. Then Raghu took us for tractor ride around the farm.
We had a brief pottery session, where a local Potter helped us make small clay pots on the wheel. Kids were all excited and they started mingling easily with each other. Needless to say also along with the dog and it's puppies in the farm.

Tent and Telescope setup:

Around 3:30 pm, Vijay asked us to assemble in the open ground and gave us a briefing on tent setup. He demonstrated the same by hosting his tent. In less than an hour or so all tents were setup. Vijay started his Telescope setup. As expected the kids started hovering around him. He was patient and explained us in simple words, what each part ment and it's importance in the telescope. He also explained us how the telescope uses the geographic location ( latitude and longitude details) are entered in the telescope. This helps the telescope find location of the stars and planets automatically. It was quite interesting. This was followed by hot pipping cup of tea or coffee.

Sunset point

At around 5:30 pm, we along with Raghu marched towards the sunset point. It's at relatively higher altitude within the farm. We could see the sunset, amongst the banana plantain. Raghu continually updated us on his research and day to day struggles in organic farming in India. Many of our myths on organic products, were demystified by Raghu.

Astronomy quiz and campfire

Vijay conducts an astronomy quiz for kids and adults later in the evening. It is a basic quiz for kids to understand what solar system, planets and other heavenly bodies are all about. He also uses this time to brief the team members about the days plan. The list of expected planets and stars spottings and their tentative timings. We were informed, that we will be able to see moon and it's crators at night 10 pm. Later around 5 am in morning, we would spot Saturn and Jupiter. We were little concerned, if the kids will get up at 4:30 am. However the kids proved us wrong later.

After the quiz, Raghu setup the campfire and we enjoyed some fire grilled onions, sweet potatoes, corns and pineapples. This was followed by sumptuous, organic vegetarian dinner.

Star gazing at night and early morning

Around 9:30 pm, we assembled near the telescope in the ground. Vijay set up the telescope to view the moon and it's crators. Parallelly he had also set up a camera on tripod, to capture the star trail. We could see the moon's surface and it's various crators clearly. He also explained us about the multiple star constellations. Unfortunately, it was cloudy and we had to wrap up the sigthing after some time. We all woke up at 4:30 am, to watch the planets. Luckily the sky was clear and we could see Jupiter and Saturn. Then Vijay focused on the planets rings and few spots. It was an enlightening experience for us to witness crystal clear images of planets literally at a hands distance.

Glimpses of the moon's surface through Vijay's telescope.

Jupiter

Mars

Milkyway

Saturn

Star trail

A star trail is a type of photograph that uses long exposure times to capture the apparent motion of stars in the night sky due to Earth's rotation. A star-trail photograph shows individual stars as streaks across the image, with longer exposures yielding longer arcs. Camera Setup and Processing: Follow these steps to try this method:

You will need to turn on your camera's Long Exposure Noise Reduction setting.
After doing so, focus your lens per the steps in the Focusing Your Lens at Night Section.
Next, select your composition and try an exposure time between 30 seconds to 3-4 minutes with an ISO of 600-800 and take multiple picture. Approx 2 hrs. Or more. More time .... Better trail.
Software to Stack all captured pics: StarTrails. Very easy to work on StarTrails software.

Deep sky photography

The basic process for capturing deep-sky images is this: You shoot multiple, long-exposure photographs with your DSLR through a tracking telescope mount. You then combine the images together to improve the signal to noise ratio. For more details please connect with Vijay or join relevant Astronomy Event.

Morning farm visit and breakfast

Next morning, few of the enthusiastic team members, got up to witness the sun rise at 6 am. I was laying around in the tent for some time. I woke up with fright when I realised, the farm dog was trying to approach the tent.

We were served tea and coffee. Later, we went for farm walk. Raghu explained us the various crops and his strategy to have multi seasonal yield to reduce the risk of natural disaster to crops. He also showed us various organic insect repellents used in the farm. We spotted few birds as well. We were also given tour of the organic fertilizer shed. He also explained why they had placed the borewell and natural water collection tank at lower altitude within thr farm. All these things were well planned and thought through. The kids enjoyed swinging on the banyan tree. We savoured the idli sambhar for breakfast and called it end of the day at farm. There were few farm grown organic products for sell.

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