Here are the snippets from all the astronomy I’ve done in 2016.
Waxing gibbous Moon as on 22nd Jan. 2016
On 6th Mar. 2016 I was a part of our usual Urban astronomy session with these awesome people at Sahal Telescopes and Binoculars headquarter.
On 18th Apr. I attended first event of ‘Global Astronomy Month’ by Karachi Astronomers Society at Zamzama Park. It was a public event for viewing Moon & Jupiter via telescope. We have 2 telescopes; 6 inch SkyWatcher Dobsonian telescope & 90mm telescope. Attended by 500 people and lots of them are curious about these telescopes & the objects in the sky.
On 24th April there was another Global Astronomy event where I viewed Sunspots through telescope at ‘Solar Sunday & Jupiter Watch’ held by Karachi Astronomers Society at PIA Planetarium.
On 9th May I had an amazing opportunity to witness Mercury Transit at the Kastrodome observatory. This event is so rare that it happened only 13 times in a century.
On 18th May, as a premium member of Karachi Astronomers Society (KAS) I received members kit containing a t-shirt, car sticker, membership card, solar glasses & contact card.
On 16th June I captured 87% illuminated waxing gibbous Moon in Karachi. It’s amazing to see the crater details near the terminator.
On 13th Aug. I was so excited for the Perseid meteor shower as it was the peak night. I spent 5hrs on my roof. First there was some scattered clouds in Karachi then at 4am it was all cloudy. My meteor count was 13 and captured two in my camera.
On 17th Sep. there was Penumbral Lunar Eclipse, which is different from normal Lunar Eclipse. Penumbral Lunar Eclipse is only a semi darkening of the moons limbs, so it’s quite hard to notice with naked eye. I was on my roof from 8pm-1am to witness this. I setup my camera for time-lapse video but then I decided to make a Moon Collage to show the change with time.
On 6th Oct. I captured 16.2% illuminated waxing crescent moon in Karachi as I love the details of waxing crescent.
21st Oct. was the peak night of Orionid Meteor Shower in Karachi so I was at my roof at 4am it was quite humid but the sky was clear so I setup my camera and luckily just before fajr prayers I captured 2 meteors in my camera. In 1.5 hrs I’ve seen 10 meteors. In the picture you can see the brightest star Sirius, M42 only nebula which is visible with naked eye, Betelgeuse and of-course the Orionid Meteor. . . Have you seen any meteor shower in your city ?
On 14th Nov. there was a Supermoon which is the closest supermoon since January 26, 1948 and the moon won’t come this close to Earth again until November 25, 2034. I shared that photo on twitter and Maddie Stone from Gizmodo asked me if he can share that picture with credit.
@farmansha hi! absolutely love this photo, mind if i share it on Gizmodo with credit? doing a roundup of great supermoon photos
— Maddie Stone (@themadstone) November 14, 2016
After that conversation that image has been featured at Gizmodo.
All the images can be found at #fnastronomy hashtag on instagram.