A road trip. A boat ride. A camp site. And starlight. Thanks to Mumbai travellers, we had a personal astronomy enthusiast with us and an arrangement for campsites and food. Since it was a friends birthday, it was a personal group of close friends. Once at Muthkhel village, the local villagers arranged for tents and food for us at the campsite. They rowed us to the other side of the lake and set up tents there. We started our astronomy session at 7 pm thinking we would be bored soon but funnily enough, we continued talking about the cosmos till 1 am. We woke up at 5 am again to see Jupiter, Mars, Venus and a crescent moon aligned and the milky way on the other side. It was the most magnificent sight I had seen ever. It was humbling to realise the scale of our universe and how minuscule we were.
If anyone is interested on the 13th December 2015, the Geminoid showers are happening across the Indian skies, take your car, drive off to a dark location with more sky and less lights and watch the showers of the geminoid asteroid from 9 pm to 12 midnight. Take in a little magic :)