Astronomy Camp at AIS 2011

Well, this is the first blog post that I'm publishing after 2 months. I'm really sorry about the absence of updates and news as i was really busy with University academics and AIESEC work. This post is about the Astronomy camp that we conducted for the Asian International School (AIS) last 18th of March

Astronomy Camp - March 2011 at University of Colombo

I'm now gonna blog about an event that we had in our University almost 2 months back. I'm really sorry guys for dragging this such longer due to the busy schedule I've been undergoing last few months due to various reasons. Hope you don't mind me sharing in so late. Anyway here it is...

Watch Total Solar Eclipse 11th July 2010 Live Streaming from EclipseBlog

The most awaited total solar eclipse of the year 2010 is about to take place in less than next 20 hours from now. There have been a lot of groups/ individuals flocked at South Pacific islands and Chilean territories right now waiting for the eclipse to take place.

IYA2009 Commemorative Coins Issued by Many Countries Worldwide

As the title of this post hints, there were lot of countries involved in this worldwide celebration during 2009, which was the 400th anniversary of both the discovery of telescope for astronomical observation by Galileo Galilei and the publication of “Astronomia Nova” by Johannes Kepler. These were the reasons which were prominent in specifying 2009 as the IYA.

A Tribute to Fiami the author of The Lives of Galileo

I have already made a post about Fiami, and his great gift that I received during the Christmas season. I got many great feedback on that and even my friends wanted to read it, as none of them had the comic book with them, So I thought of doing a youtube video featuring Fiami

The Blog Has Moved !

Sunday, September 9, 2012

An unknown static blinking red dot close to zenith tonight

I'm publishing this post to know if there are more people who have seen the same as I did, just a while ago. I was going to my rooftop just to catch some fresh air and suddenly something brighter in sky took my attention. It was located about 20 degrees northeast wards from my zenith (I was located in Piliyandal, Sri Lanka), Local time read 20:00h. (09th Spetember 2012). Please note that Sri Lanka is GMT+5:30h

My co-ordinates in Piliyandala

Latitude: +6.801778
Longitude: +79.940354

There was a bright red dot noticeably visible to where I was and I was observing it for almost an hour before it disappeared. However I noticed that the background stars were moving relative to this strange red dot and the dot was frequently varying its color. During this course I assume the dot remained static in its celestial location/ co-ordinates. Thus I noticed a fast variation of its brightness. Unforgettably I didn't have advanced equipment for recording this, but I informed some of my friends located in the same vicinity and few of them could observe the strange red dot.

Just few minutes before it was gone, I noticed the dot becoming even redder and I had no clue what it was, I ruled out that it was a satellite as it was a static object as per my observations.

Finally what I could figure out was that this might be some explosion very far far away from our solar system. Could it be something in the range of what Tycho Brahe observed to be a supernova explosion for months, located from Europe during the 16th century, whereas the duration of this as 1 hour more or less ?

Looking forward to your comments and maybe similar reports..

Clear skies !!