ISLAMABAD   -  The residents of Rawalpindi under the vast skies have started sighting cosmos and astronomical exploration through a community-led initiative of Rawalpindi Astronomy Society (RAS) dedicated for children and general public. Yasir Ali Awan, head of RAS has been organizing astronomy-based activities for the past three years once in a month with dates selected near weekends within ten days before the full moon. 

Awan an amateur astronomer told APP that the activities were held with the main goal of nurturing a lot of children interested in astronomy and sciences to feed their minds with relevant and interesting information that remained completely unavailable and inaccessible for common people in the past. 

He added that it was his personal vision and goal to make information related to astronomy and cosmos common and easily available for the masses and children. He had created the Rawalpindi Astronomy Society group that was active on Facebook, where other groups created for activities on space sciences were operating. Awan used to participate in those groups. 

“Rawalpindi-related activities’ purpose is that countries working on astronomy used to have such observatories and societies supported by the government which is unfortunately not existing but many initiatives are done by the public on its own and we are also doing the same. We are trying to create awareness among the masses and share knowledge to the young students that may lead to creating one of the future science leaders,” Yasir Ali Awan said. He said since most of the activity involved astronomy and physics, it might be the fruit of the RAS efforts to help students progress in science and astronomy that would help bring laurels to the country. Awan said the once-in-a-month activity was free of cost and announced two days before the event on Facebook and also proclaimed in various other social media groups. 

To a query, he said people have interest but due to lack of awareness, the turnout was very low as 30-40 people participated in the 2.5-3 hours session. He added that moon sighting activity was done recently but there was no planet visible with it as the latter emerged late in the system.

“We sighted craters, mountain ranges, marine areas, and plains on the Moon. However, we also observe planets through a telescope and show it to children as Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn at different times,” he said. Yasir Ali Awan explained that after Fajr time, Jupiter was visible, Saturn at midnight and in between Mars was visible as Jupiter was near Mars. “After that, you also see Venus which is briefly visible after Maghrib prayer timings.

We observe and search nebulae and orion constellation personally which is visible in winters as it is more technical and harder to comprehend for children,” he added. 

Milky Way Sagittarius was commonly visible during a clear sky and it was observed with bare eyes but due to more light in the urban cities astronomical objects were less visible and therefore the RAS had to shift to outer places other than the urban places, he said, adding, “But we are more focused to hold activities that are possible within cities within limited time as families and children participate in our activities. I try to spread the word through Facebook and I have my YouTube channel under the name of Ali Space Astro on astronomical knowledge explained in simple Urdu to learn to differentiate between stars and planets, galaxies, black holes and basic topics of space sciences.”