It all started when I suddenly became curious about Sunrise and Sunset times, probably because my watch can tell it too. Being able to predict Sunrise/Sunset time using model of Solar System is an indirect evidence that the model is correct and probably true also and we are really on a rotating ball which is revolving around Sun at an incredible speed. I was also interested in this because the calculation would have been a good computer programming assignment. This curiosity led me to understanding of solar system and sky beyond of what I ever had and much more than what we had studied. By the time I learnt rising and setting times of Sun, finding these for other stars and planets was also within my reach. First time in my life I was able to point at Venus, Jupiter and Mars. All this was very fascinating.

After researching a lot about telescopes and binoculars I chose to get binoculars because they are cheaper and their wide field of view is perfect when you are new to the sky and learning your way around it. So today I got my 15x70 binoculars. After getting them i was so excited and wanted to see stars through them. I left early from work to have a glance but when i reached i found that there was complete cloud cover. It was very disappointing. I went to the terrace looked through the binoculars, it was an impressive view . I could easily read number plate of a car parked two streets across. I came down the stairs to my room and had dinner. Afterwards, I went to balcony to see but there was still cloud cover. I saw that there were some patches of no cloud cover through which i could see clear sky and found one star was shinning through that hole between the clouds. Quickly I ran to my room to pick pair of binocular. To my amazement I could see at least 10 stars through that hole where there was hardly one visible without them. I had never imagined that this could happen. Then, I went to terrace and targeted binocs at Jupiter. It was looking like a disk, then I tried to steady binocs to see if I could get a view of the moons of Jupiter and yes I could even see the moons. Then I checked the star map and it was showing that moon has not set yet but it is close to horizon. I decided to go to the higher terrace to get a look of the moon. Through binoculars, moon’s craters were visible along the edge of crescent. Since power of binocs is not much moon is not visible close enough. However, because of quality You can see the definition of craters.

After that I spent some time looking at a star which I suppose was sirius. However I could not confirm whether it was sirius as I could not identify the canis major constellation. Then I started looking for pleadies in taurus constellation . I again checked my star map application and tried to star hope from jupiter which was in jemini to pla edies. But it was very difficult and only after many trials suddenly it came to my sight. Its was a beautiful view, indeed. The plaedies start have a kind of effect which make them look like a bunch of flash lights in the sky. At this point, I was quite tired and my neck started hurting due to looking up for so long that too with such a heavy binocs. I checked time it was around 11 PM. I thought I should sleep then but I wanted to take another look at jupiter and its moons. By this time jupiter had shifted towards west from zenith position. This indicated me to look for mars position in the star map as mars might have risen from east now. I checked and affirmed that mars was quite visible above horizon and looking towards east I could see a star close to the position shown in star map but I could not see another star spica near it as it was in virgo constellation. When i looked at it through binocular it appeared like a red dot which kind of confirmed to me that it was mars. All in all its was a wonderful time with my new binocs.