VT-2004 -  an Interview with Dr. Rathnasree, Nandivada
Director, Nehru Planetarium, Delhi

Dr. Ratnasree did her doctoral  work in Astrophysics relating to stellar evolution and has postdoctoral experience  in the field of pulsars. Currently she is the Director of the Nehru Planetarium, New Delhi. Administration, the development of new programmes, lectures and guidance to school and college students in Astronomy-related projects are her main professional duties. A familiar face in Media, she keeps the public informed about imminent celestial events.

Juggling family responsibilities with professional demands that extends beyond the 9 to 5 office routines, Dr. Ratnasree manages to write popular science books for the young, articles to popularize astronomy, and even indulges in some short-story writing. It is a great marvel how she is running a understaffed planetarium, with a shoe-string budget,  while still trying keep up with latest technologies. It is indeed the subject interest and the commitment that may be keep her going.

I have sent this questionnaire couple of days back and got the reply within 24 Hours,  with an apology for the delay!!!

Email: rathnasree63@yahoo.co.uk
Web Page: http://www.rathnasree.htmlplanet.com

The actual observations of the transit itself were exhilarating, as also the year long preparations and interactions with students which was a very fruitful activity. Observing the transit through projected images of the Sun gave a more community feeling of watching a rare event that brought about a worldwide togetherness of Astronomers, educators and students. On the other hand, watching the transit, through telescopes equipped with solar filters - was more of a personal feeling - as if there was just the Sun, Venus and self - an intensity of interest in which one could lose oneself - something like that. All in all, it has been a very fruitful year of preparation and day of transit watching.

ComCom: What were the major studies and activity you had taken up for this event?

Nehru Planetarium, a team of amateur astronomers and students, had plans to observe the transit -

• 1. with simple projection equipment using binoculars, for the timing of the contacts, for measuring angular diameters of the Sun and Venus, for measuring the parameters of the orbit of Venus etc.
  

• 2. Heliostat and telescope projection observations for measuring the apparent path of Venus on the Sun, as seen from Delhi.
  

• 3. For obtaining the angular diameter of the Sun and Venus in Right Ascension and Declination, using an equatorially mounted telescope. and
  

• 4. More sophisticated telescopes with tracking facilities and filters, for a live webcast of the event, for live feed to the media and photography at regular intervals.

These were the activities for the Transit day. For a year before that the Planetarium has been actively involved in learning about the event, sharing all of the information with all educational groups around the country and the world, through the Yahoogroup VenusTransit moderated by the Nehru Planetarium.

We were also involved in many activities with students for preparatory activities related to the Transit:


• 1. Earth Radius measurements.
  
  

• 2. Measurement of Venus maximum elongation - which activity was done very successfully, using the Jayaprakas and Ram Yantra at the Delhi Jantar Mantar.
  
  

• 3. Timing practice and mock transit practice with students and
  
  

• 4. Measurement of angular diameter and declination of the Sun as part of the activities related to the Transit of Venus.

 

 

 

ComCom: What are the professional scientific studies carried out from your centre?

With the data obtained from the various setup mentioned above - the first activity is related to obtaining the Astronomical Unit from student measurements - using the method of Delisle as we missed obtaining the 3rd contact.

The angular diameter measurements, particularly those measured in Right Ascension and Declination, will be used for testing the sphericity of the Planet Venus, through student measurements.

From the detailed photographs obtained at regular time intervals - students and amateur astronomers would be working for the modelling of the blackdrop effect - and looking for contributions to this from instrumental effects, atmosphere of the Earth and that of Venus.

ComCom: What is your reaction to public response to VT-2004 event?

There was tremendous public response to the event - about 7000 people had come to the Planetarium to view the event - and the student observations were carried out simultaneous with public skywatch. There was no inkling of there being many astrology related queries from the public which was very welcome and there were a number of questions related to the event, viewing precautions and its significance. There was (as there always is) some number of public viewers who would break the queues and trouble the other viewers as well as all the volunteer helpers we had - this gave rise to some problems of handling the public viewing, later with the afternoon thundery development there were some more tense moments - but, otherwise, most of the public who had come to view the event went away very happy.

ComCom: Are you satisfied with the role played by media in educating public and increase awareness among common people?

Media has played an intense role in creating awareness about the Transit of Venus. There has been an all round awareness of the event through the efforts of the media. However, it seemed rather sad that a lot of the media coverage was given to Astrologers talking about rather inane and irrelevant predictions concerning the transit - an event which they could not have predicted themselves, and got to know about, from articles written by Astronomers. While covering the event, it would have been better if a scientist or Astronomer was consulted for the entire plan of the coverage.

ComCom: How did astronomers determine the Astronomical Unit and why is this important?

The first attempts to determine the Astronomical Unit used Solar eclipses and observations of Mars at favourable oppositions.

Following Halley's thoughts about the usage of the Transits of Venus, there were many attempts during the transits of 1761, 1769, 1874 and 1882 to measure the contact timings from different corners of the world - and from the parallax of Venus observed through such observations and using Kepler's laws relating the time periods and orbital parameters of the Planets, it was possible to arrive at an estimation of the Astronomical Unit - the Earth-Sun distance.

As it happened, the resulting accuracies of these determinations was not as good as Halley expected and better accuracies for the determination of the Astronomical Unit, came with observations of the oppositions of the asteroid Eros. Later, techniques of radar bouncing from Venus, gave the most accurate estimate of the Astronomical Unit.

ComCom: What are the strength and weakness in your centre in terms of infrastructure to conduct such programme of importance and to give support for public viewing?

Nehru Planetarium, New Delhi, has almost no equipment to deal with an event of this magnitude - having just a simple CZ telescope of 2.5 inches aperture and a pair of Nikon Binoculars as equipment belonging to the Planetarium.

However, the strength of the Planetarium lies in its extensive educational activities and interaction with amateur astronomers. For the Transit of Venus as well as many other events earlier, it had been possible for the Planetarium to show the events to a large number of public, do live webcasting as well as give live feed to the media, because of enthusiastic help given to the Planetarium, by amateur astronomers - in terms of their personal equipment as well as their expertise for the viewing of celestial events.

The Planetarium has a core group of members who have been very active in educational activities related to celestial events as well as through regular interaction with students in the form of Live school shows, student projects for senior school. college and MSc students.

The Planetarium needs immediate funding for the purchase of some good equipment in terms of a telescope of some decent aperture as well as CCD and spectroscopic equipment, so that such events could be observed to their full potential and college students could do fruitful projects at the Planetarium.

ComCom: With the type of role played by National Media like Doordarshan this time, Do you feel VT-2004 got adequate exposure?

Yes, ofcourse, there was an enormous exposure to the event - in the Doordarshan as well as all the private channels. The Doordarshan coverage was perhaps the most professional - with the private channels going in more for the sensationalising of the event as well as giving an enormous weightage to astrologers.

ComCom: There are efforts all around the country by Amateurs and Planetariums to promote activities connected with Venus Transit. What you feel can be done to have better cooperation among Science Communicators, Astronomers both professional and amateurs? What role Nehru Planetarium located in Delhi can play for such cooperation?



There has been a lot of individual efforts and some amount of co-operative initiatives by Astronomers and Science Communicators, towards activities connected with the Transit of Venus. For instance, Nehru Planetarium, New Delhi, had started and has been moderating a Yahoo Groups VenusTransit through which there has been a co-operative planning and discussions about possible activities and science of the Transit. There has been worldwide recognition and appreciation for these efforts. There have also been other initiatives towards co-operative activities related to the Transit. This kind of co-operation would be very fruitful to continue towards general efforts of Science and Astronomy popularization. The best way for such a co-operation to have ease of access and availability of shared information would be through such groups or forums where increased participation may be expected. Perhaps, the same group, VenusTransit may be one platform where we could expect interaction and co-operation for activities stretching all the way to the 2012 transit.

ComCom: What publications are further planed by Nehru Planetarium for this event?

Nehru Planetarium group of observers have obtained some interesting data from the Transit, in terms of the contacts (only 1st and 2nd) angular diameter and orbital parameters of Venus as well as data to test for sphericity of the Planet Venus. These are student observations that could serve as project studies for all the students involved and which would be prepared as articles related to analysis by students.

In addition, some data has also been obtained as images that will be analysed in detail to model phenomenon like the Blackdrop, etc, for detailed studies these efforts make interesting studies at the amateur level and would be worked towards amateur astronomy publications in the near future.

ComCom: Madam, your suggestions to Schools and educational institutions to have better participation in important astronomical events in future?

Schools need to have regular Astronomy clubs that interact with their local Planetarium and science museums and have regular observing and learning activities related to Astronomy. One good way for such clubs to have access to information from professional and amateur astronomers would be to become members of many online groups and forums related to Astronomy where they could post with any questions related to the subject matter. Nehru Planetarium, New Delhi, has one such group, for instance, where there is a lot of interaction between students, astronomers and educators at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NehruPlanetarium

There is always a lot of information available online about all the recent and upcoming astronomical events however, being members of active Astronomy groups would alert students to these events easily and make it possible for them to be prepared well in time.

ComCom: Are you thinking in terms of continuous programme to create interest among the children in Astronomy?

Yes, ofcourse. Nehru Planetarium, New Delhi, has been having a continuous interaction with interested students from all over the country, through the group mentioned above for the last few years and it is expected that this interaction will increase after the interest that has been generated by the Transit of Venus activities. The Planetarium, also has an intensity of interaction and activities with school, College and University students that will also be made more co-operative and accessible to all students who have an interest in Astronomy.

ComCom:  What type of permanent setup can be made available for both night and day time astronomical studies for Children and other citizens?

It would be wonderful to have a robotic telescope setup at a suitable location within India that would give access to Indian students who wish to participate in observing programs observations that would lead to some serious studies over a few months and make the students aware of Astronomy as other than knowing the stars and the constellations and observing directly or through Astrophotography. Involvement of students in observational projects related to physical understanding of celestial objects photometric and spectroscopic studies these facilities, if they are made available to students easily it would be possible for centres like the Nehru Planetarium, New Delhi, to work together with students towards analysis projects with such observations that could give them a physical understanding of celestial events.

In addition the availability of a good telescope for public viewing as well as possibilities of staff that could be employed, to operate it on a daily basis with the twin purpose of keeping observing facilities open for public viewing as well as work with students involved in taking observations for projects would be a wonderful facility to have.

ComCom: Madam, your suggestions for reaching out information and astronomy to scattered geographical areas of our country especially the Rural India?

Television and Internet these are reaching over to all remote corners of the country and they need to be utilized better, for this purpose. Online groups like the VenusTransit which did serve such a purpose to some extent there were students from Nagaland, Cuttack, Alipore, Jaipur, Indore, many small towns of Gujrat and many other locations in the country, that did have access to information related to the Transit, through such a group. Co-operative efforts around the country could make such online groups much more fruitful.

Television programs with immediate and mass appeal related to Astronomy events, are bound to be very useful in this direction. There is no question that most people in India watch with alertness, the moment there is a talk of any celestial event. Perhaps this is because of the deep rooted culture of relating celestial events for every ritual in our culture. One could utilize this interest, while, at the same time, clarifying the lack of scientific basis for such astrological connections in fact a debate on this head is always bound to be found interesting by all viewers and could perhaps be used as a tool for creating Astronomy awareness.

Thank you madam,  for the information and suggestions shared with our users.

Thank you - ComCom

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