The Sky

It's always a pleasure to watch the night sky with its zillions of celestial bodies. But, with today's mindless 'development', it is impossible to watch a clear sky in cities, what with skyscrapers, pollution and the ambient light. Things are not so bad in the villages yet. Iam still fortunate to be able to see a reasonably clear sky from my present residence at Bangalore especially when there is a power cut which is not infrequent.

One of the most interesting events in sky-watching is when there is an occasional confluence of the celestial objects such as the moon and planets and of course, the chance sight of a meteor. Given alongside are photographs of two such events, one, the rendezvous of Venus with moon and the other, the confluence of moon, Venus and Jupiter. In the first case, which occurred in February, 2004, Venus appeared to be very close to moon though in reality it is 307 times farther than moon from earth. Venus was so brilliant because it was closer to the Sun than Earth so it got lit more brightly. It was looking like a tear drop from moon. Venus is sometimes called our sister planet because it is similar in size to Earth.

The Moon-Venus-Jupiter confluence occurred on 1st December 2008 and I could just get one shot before the clouds intervened. It was as if the crescent moon was winking and smiling! This phenomenon occurs once in four years.

The Da Vinci Code and St.Sulpice Church

Dan Brown’s ‘Da Vinci Code’ is one of my favourite books. I was enamoured by the manner in which Dan Brown juxtaposed facts and fiction, making the readers almost believe that this is how it happened. I had visited the Louvre Museum some time back, but after reading the book, I wanted to revisit it as the starting point of the Da Vinci Code trail. The opportunity arose during a transit through Paris in 2005, but it happened to be a holiday for the museum on account of May Day. This left me with the option of visiting another scene of action in the book, namely St.Sulpice Church. And was it worth the trouble!

The Louvre and the Glass Pyramid

The present church of Saint Sulpice was constructed in the 17th century on the site of an earlier building (the ancient temple to the Egyptian goddess Isis, according to Dan Brown), the remains of which are visible in the crypt of the church. A number of additions and modifications were done during the 17th and 18th centuries. The church had a turbulent history and ceased to be a place of worship during the French Revolution. Many of its treasures were pillaged . It was again restored during the first half of 19th century.

The Nave of the Church

As mentioned in the 'Code', the astronomical gnomon is a major attraction of the church.

The gnomon is an astronomical instrument designed to follow the variations in the height of the sun at noon. It works by means of a 'meridian' line traced on the floor of the transept by a brass insert in the stone pavement. It is carefully laid from south to north and continues on a white marble obelisk. In the book, the meridian is referred to as the 'Rose Line' and ostensibly represented the time line before 'Greenwich Meridian' was accepted as the new time line.

The ornate vault, the beautiful choir and the elegant stained glass windows all add to the magnificence of the church.

To see a video of St.Sulpice Church, please click on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pI6B-T7C9g4&feature=channel_page

The Organ Case

The Quiet Creek

The human mind is quite like the sea with its high and low tides. And in the morning, an all pervading calm prevails only to be broken again by disturbances like a boat knifing through this quietness, making ripples and leaving behind turbulence in its wake.
These pictures were taken when I was waiting on a ferry to be taken across the creek at Baratang, Middle Andamans.
The water was as still as one can imagine and the mangroves provided a contrasting backdrop. The early morning sun falling lazily on the veil of fog completed the picture. As I was breathing in this beautiful scene, the thud-thud of a distant motor boat was heard and the ensuing sight was as magical as the previous one.

It was like the Schliren Pictures that we had in the aerodynamics lab where flow visualisation around aerofoils is recorded in a wind tunnel.
You can watch videos of Baratang at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUQTmEw5o3o