This is a Guest Post by Dr. S.V. Narasimhan from Virajpet about his adventures in Antarctica and his experience while sky-watching in the continent.
– PAAC Team
I have never seen any other countries other than India. That doesn’t mean that I didn’t have a desire to visit other countries. Once, I had visited Singapore with my wife, Pushpa, when we were newly married. Other than that entry, my passport is completely empty!
In July of 2017, my friend Dr. Kiran, who is a practicing doctor in Gonikoppalu just like me, asked me: “I’ve got a chance to visit Antarctica on a cruise, and I need a partner. Would you like to join?”. I immediately agreed . I got my new passport and visa, and I prepared myself for this journey. We set sail on a cruise on January 19th, and starting from Argentina’s capital city, Buenos Aires, we visited five countries and a continent in the next 15 days.
Normally, most of the people travel to countries in the north of Equator, such as Europe, America, Russia, Japan, China, Indonesia, and our neighbouring countries like Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka. The countries in the south of the equator, like South African countries, South American countries, Australia, New Zealand, etc., do not attract the travelers that much.
This was my first time travelling to the south of the equator. So I had a lot of expectations. The environment, bio-diversity, the atmosphere, languages and cultures of different people, and most importantly, the night sky.
Starting from Buenos Aires, our ‘Celebrity Infinity’ ship reached Ushuaia (the southernmost city in the world), via Uruguay and Chile. The nearest route to Antarctica from this city is about 30 hours of travelling by ship.
In all, we spent 4 days in Antarctica. In this course of time, we visited places like Paradise bay, Brabant island, Deception island, and Elephant island.
For those people who live in the Northern Hemisphere, December indicates the onset of winter. But the Southern Hemisphere experiences burning summer in December. And when we have summer, they experience winter. This natural fact is easily noticeable for people living in places 30° away from the equator, both north and south.
Our travel was about five thousand kilometres south of Buenos Aires, to reach Antarctica. During this continuous travelling, there were noticeable changes in temperatures, the day-night cycle and the climate. Even though the interior of the ship is completely air conditioned, at 21°C, one can feel these changes when you open the doors and step out on the deck. The changes which stand out the most are:
- The sudden decrease in temperature! While going south from Buenos Aires at 38°S to Antarctica at 62°S latitude, the temperature drops from 32° C to -9° C. We were wearing cotton clothing and shorts at the beginning, but we had to quickly change to woollen wear. And later, it was so cold that even thermals and socks were not enough.
- As it was summer, day time duration increased and night time duration decreased as we travelled further south. This was noticeable at Buenos Aires itself. It wasn’t dusk when the local time was 8:30 pm! This was indeed a strange experience for me who has spent my whole life in Karnataka. It felt like noon, when it was 11 at night. When we reached Antarctica, around 11:45 pm, it was dusky and felt like night, at last.
- Also, the wind! It blew with the speed of about 100 to 150 km per hour. It was quite difficult several times to even come outside on the deck of the ship. The wind was always blowing from west to east. When we wanted to watch something out in the sea, we had to stand on the deck at the opposite side. The Atlantic ocean is very rough. But we didn’t experience its roughness that much as we were travelling very close to the eastern shore of South America, from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia. After that we had to face the open oceans: the Pacific in the west, the Atlantic in the east. The Pacific ocean is indeed ‘peaceful’ as its name suggests. We were travelling in those waters till we reached Antarctica , so no one thought that the journey was difficult.
- We encountered a lot of extreme weather anomalies in Antarctica. First of all, the cold weather at temperatures of -9°C to -15°C, even during summer days. Foggy atmosphere; Cloudy rains; Snowfall; Blowing wind; and also, Clear skies amongst them. What’s more interesting is, one could experience all these changes in the weather within a matter of just 45 minutes!
You should wear thermals, warm waterproof vests, and also socks and gloves to cover hands and feet, if you want to go outside during this time. It was quite irritating for us to wear all these, every-time we stepped outside our rooms, and changing to normal clothing after coming back inside.
Summer is the only best time if you want to visit Antarctica, by sea. During winters, the ice glaciers cover the ocean entirely over a hundred kilometres, which makes it impossible to reach the land through ships. The ice slowly starts to melt when sunlight falls on it, making way for the ship to sail in the ocean, little by little. This process begins in November, and continues till December, and finally the ocean will be clear at the end of January. So, February-March is the best time to travel to Antarctica. By the end of March, the ships will be less likely to sail to Antarctica, since the water starts to freeze again.
We left Ushuaia on January 26th. Two days later, on 28th of January, it was the first sighting of the icebergs of Antarctica around 5:15 am. Every passenger aboard the ship, with the eagerness to see the continent of Antarctica, were ready on ship’s top floor – the 12th deck, up and about at 4 am, shivering in the cold!
Stargazing:
Some parts of the sky, which are not visible from Northern Hemisphere, are visible from Southern Hemisphere. Watching the clear skies of Antarctica is really amazing, especially due to the fact that there is no light pollution or artificial lights.
I had prepared notes and charts about the different celestial objects, nebulae that were visible from the Antarctica sky.
While Sky-watching, you should take note of some general things. You might have seen Polaris, or the Pole Star. If you go north from the equator, the Pole Star rises at same altitude from the horizon as that of the latitude. For example, it is at an altitude of 12° to 17° north in Karnataka, and at 28° in Delhi. We can see the northern and southern constellations on either side of us in the sky. In between these constellations, the Sun, the Moon and the planets appear to travel from east to west. If we stand at the North Pole, we can see the Pole Star directly above us, as well as all the ‘northern’ constellations. Moreover, the Sun and the planets, and the Moon appear to travel horizontally across the horizon.
Similarly, if we stand at the South Pole, only the ‘southern’ constellations are visible. And the constellations visible in the southern horizon from India, are easily visible above your head from Antarctica. The planets appear to move horizontally across the horizon, and the Sun won’t rise above one’s shoulder level.
Carina
Carina is a famous constellation visible in the southern sky. It is the most astonishing constellation, with many stars, star clusters, nebulae, and also a region containing few amazing galaxies. Canopus, the brightest star in the constellation, is easily visible to naked eye, even from Karnataka and in the southern sky. But the rest of the stars in that constellation are not easy to find. Most of the time these stars stay below the horizon in Karnataka. Milky way is the name of our galaxy. When we look up at the sky from the Earth, we can see a lump of stars, as the density (number of stars) inscreases in the middle of galaxy, and we see it in the shape of a band of milk. We can observe this beautiful Milky Way patch clearly from the place where there is very less or no light pollution. It appears to take shape from the constellation of Sagittarius and passes through Carina. Hence, we can expect to see many of the stars of our galaxy as well as many other galaxies in the region near Carina constellation. The nebula, Eta Carinae, is a favourite amongst many amateur astronomers. A star with the same name has also been born in the same nebula. There are plenty of other nebulae and star clusters around this nebula. The most beautiful and prominent of them is ‘The Eagle nebula’. With the shape of an eagle, this nebula is 7000 light years away from us, and spans about 70 light years. These nebulae are dense cloud of gases, and the place of birth for many new stars.
Magellanic Clouds
You might have read about the sailor-explorer Magellan in history. It is noted that, when he was sailing around the globe, he had seen two cloud-like celestial objects in the southern sky, which are now named after him. One of the two, is smaller than the other, and hence called the Small Magellanic Cloud, while the bigger one is known as Large Magellanic Cloud. The only galaxy visible to naked eye for us who live in the Northern Hemisphere is the Andromeda galaxy, which is two times more massive than our galaxy, and is at a distance of about 24 lakh light years. For the people who live in the Southern Hemisphere, the Magellanic clouds are also easily visible to the naked eye, in addition to the Andromeda galaxy. These two are irregular galaxies, as they don’t have any particular shape, which are revolving around our Milky Way galaxy, at a distance of about 163-206 thousand light years.
Other Constellations
Along with the above mentioned celestial objects, it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me to see some constellations like Musca, Mensa, Hydrus, Dorado, Pictor, Reticulum, Tucana, Octans, Grus, Indus… and the stars, nebulae, star clusters, different galaxies, which are only visible in southern skies.
Constellations and Greek Astronomy:
The Greeks were also among the first, to watch the night sky, and to be astonished and to show curiosity. They observed the twinkling stars, which appeared at dusk, and guessed that it had some meaning. They expanded on this guess and tried to join the sparsely spaced stars with imaginary lines, making different images out of them, and gave some Greek mythological names to these ‘pictures’. We still use the skymap, made by dividing a region and joining the stars, which now has 88 constellations. Similar to latitudes and longitudes, which help us to find the places on the Earth, we use components like Right ascension and declination to point out the place of a star.
During 1st century AD, Indian astronomers started giving and using Indian names to these 88 constellations, due to their exchange of knowledge and good relationship with the Greeks. The important point to be noted here is the fact that the twelve ‘Zodiacal constellations’ are included in this 88 constellation skymap, and so, the names of these constellations were the direct translations of the names given in Greek. Among Indians, Bhaskaracharya II (1114-1185) played an important role in giving the names to the constellations. The zodiac sign, the horoscope, which is mostly used by today’s astrologers, are not the contribution by our Indian culture, but are taken directly from the Greeks!
I started watching the sky from the first night of our sailing from Buenos Aires. While travelling towards the south, night time decreased, and in Antarctica, it was starting to get dark around 11:45 pm, and the day break around 2:30 am. Hence I had to go outside on the deck of the ship in cold at midnight, in order to watch the sky. I was lucky enough to get an opportunity to observe the night sky for two nights, among the 4 days of our visit to Antarctica, as it was raining and there was snowfall during the rest of the two nights. My companion, Kiran, came along with me only during the first night of our skywatch and denied to come the next night, as it was quite irritating to get ready to go outside in that chilling cold, and I was not expecting any other co-traveller to join me. I was really surprised to see that none of the other 2000 travellers on board, had a habit of watching the night sky.
Every night I was carrying my laptop, binoculars, green laser torch along with Canon P90 camera. As I didn’t have a telescope, my sky-watching was limited to the celestial objects visible through the binoculars. It was indeed very tiring to adjust and prepare everything in those harsh weather conditions. The compass in my phone was also not working properly those two days, and I still don’t know its cause. As I was doing this skywatch on the top deck of our ship, I could watch the sky in all directions. The lights on the ship were also causing a problem. I had to search for a dark place everytime. It was extremely hard to take photographs in that severe cold. I could not turn the keys of the camera with those thick gloves on, while removing the gloves to take pictures caused immediate numbness. And it took two minutes to warm the fingers again.
30th January
The region of sky in the south was new to me. I thought that it would be easier to recognise the heavenly bodies, as I used to watch the night sky daily, whenever I got time. But surprisingly, I had problem recognising stars from this new perspective. Because all the stars appeared to shine with more brightness than usual in that clear sky of Antarctica.
Sea, as far as one can see and heavenly sky, all above your head! Wow! I do not have words to explain! Kiran accompanied me. I showed and explained everything we were observing in the sky. It was very exciting.
The first thing that attracted me in the sky was of course, the Milky Way. I had never seen the centre of our galaxy, so beautiful and well above the horizon. The sky was adorned by the constellations Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpius, and Sagittarius. Jupiter was in Libra; Mars was near ‘Anuradha nakshatra’ in Scorpius; Saturn was in Sagittarius. I guess it was Full Moon the previous night. But the Moon had already set in the west around 12:50 am, and hence our sky-watch was not hindered by its light. The Orion and Canis Major got our attention. I watched the important constellations like Centaurus, Crux, Carina several times and enjoyed every little detail.
Then all my attention went on the Magellanic clouds. Till then, I had only seen its image in books or computers. I had imagined that these clouds would be easily visible to us as a grey patch of clouds. But definitely, I couldn’t see them for some time. I had to use my binoculars to find the same objects, which once Magellan had vividly seen centuries ago! I took their photos without any delay.
Kiran hardly had any interest in serious matters like sky-watching. He had problems with back pain, neck strain, chilling cold which made it impossible to move the fingers, and he was sleepy. So, we didn’t continue till dawn. It was still 2 O’clock.
31st January
Kiran didn’t accompany me this night. I had to go to the top deck with all those equipment and watch the night sky, all alone. I watched the same sky as previous night. We were returning the next day, so I watched the sky again and again, and for a last time!
It was past midnight. Our ship was sailing next to a mountain range of an island. I saw a miraculous light from the southern horizon. As I was guessing whether it was light from another nearby ship, that light enveloped the entire sky. Within 30 to 45 seconds, different shades of colours spread across the southern sky! It was the most beautiful moment of my life! I had come across an awesome phenomenon called Arora Australis. This is also called as ‘Geomagnetic pole radiance’. This ‘lighting of sky’ occurs when the electromagnetic waves from the Sun hit Earth’s atmosphere near the poles, which produces electric waves in Earth’s magnetosphere. This light can be seen as the shades of green, red, and yellow. We can only see this rare event near extreme latitudes and polar regions.
I looked around again. There was no one to share my excitement and happiness. I thought of waking up Kiran. But dropped the plan as it would take a minimum of 20 minutes to get ready to come out on the deck of the ship. I supposed that the Aurora might disappear during that time. But fortunately, the radiance remained for 22 minutes. There was no problem in capturing photos. I could capture those photographs without any preparations. “Wow! We had travelled 14 thousand kilometers to encounter this amazing event”, that’s what I thought. The sky became dark again. I returned to my room with a satisfied, light but equally heavy mind.
Daily, we were being briefed by the on-board guides, about our activities for the day, different places and events we were going to see, different life forms that we encounter etc., in four of the AV rooms of the ship. A person named, Mikey Live, was the head of the guides. “You explain a lot of things daily. But why won’t you ever discuss about sky-watch?”, I asked him directly. None of the guides were knowledgeable enough to explain the subject of astronomy to the passengers. “Doctor, you can tell us that, please?” he asked. I agreed, and for the next two days from then, I talked about astronomy and stargazing to about 30-70 members, in one of the AV rooms, with the help of my laptop. Unfortunately, while returning, we had to sail through the Atlantic ocean, and hence we were restricted from going out on the deck of the ship. The high tides, which rose upto 30-33 feet, and the wind blowing with the speed of 250 km per hour, made our ship to tremble, and it was impossible for anyone to come out on the deck.
I continued to watch the night sky even after reaching Buenos Aires, Argentina, and until we started our backward journey from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
If You’ve got questions:
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