helped Kiron

Kiron is a new astronomy enthusiast. I don't remember when I first met him... I think it was during the summer, maybe at a star party. He signed up for the fall NOVA class and we started chatting more and more, particularly at RASC Toronto Centre meetings. That's when we discovered we were neighbours. Despite being just a couple of streets away, we never successfully met up for any back yard astronomy.

He approached me after my TSTM presentation last Wednesday and asked if I could help him out with his impending trip to India. He wanted assistance in predicting what he would see in the night skies. Cool!

So we met up at Timothy's on Bloor West. I brought a netbook with Stellarium. We set the computer's location, time zone, and fired up the planetarium software. We tried locations in northern and southern India. We took screen snapshots. If he's lucky, he'll be able to see the Magellanic clouds and η (eta) Carina and the Tarantula and Proxima Centuri.

I also emailed him my notes (synced from Evernote via the shop's wifi). These included links to commercial planispheres for 20 and 30° latitudes, a site where you can make your own planisphere (but with a large amount of distortion), and a bunch of local club web sites.

I look forward to his reports from near the equator!