For the first time in recorded history, COVID-19 has brought the world together into experiencing an apocalyptic level hysteria (rightfully or wrongfully). For a generation that is used to seeing boundary less countries, thanks to a digital era and where long-distance mobility has become a norm, COVID-19 has effectively shut the doors on many dreams, plans and memories. The impact of the devastation has been enormous enough that the definition of time itself has changed to pre COVID-19 and post COVID-19. The most glaring consequence is its effect on the mind. Social distancing and lockdowns ensured humans have been deprived of basic emotional and physical comfort and have been forced to deal with challenging situations like losing income, career and personal progressions.

It is times like these, however, that show that being alone should not necessarily translate into being lonely. World has changed. It is not going to be exactly pre COVID-19 days again, for a long time. Therefore, the onus is on oneself to remain engaged and ensure loneliness due to being alone, is kept at bay. Hobbies play a vital role in this endeavour. It has been shown, time and again, that pursuing hobbies improves mental health keeping depression at bay.^{1 2} Many even classify hobbies into three broad categories: physical hobbies, intellectual hobbies and spiritual hobbies.

Physical hobbies can include yoga or taking up a building project in home. Intellectual hobbies can be well known puzzles like sudoku and crosswords, chess or building a mechanical contraption of a dragonfly mimic that stimulate the brain. Meditation, studying religion and self analysis can be classified as spiritual hobbies.

Seldom will one find a hobby that can span all the three categories. One such exceptional hobby, is astronomy – the study of celestial objects and phenomena. It is easy, in the context of news articles that we read of the discoveries being made, to think of the incredible amount of resources the hobby might require. In fact, that is the very first question I get when talking about astronomy as a hobby i.e., "how expensive is it to pursue the hobby?"

Astronomy can be as simple as going to dark skies and simple gazing at the stars while noting down where certain bright stars-like objects are, any non-cloud like hazy patches, etc. Doing this over a week can easily lead one to find out the ecliptic, the imaginary line that moon and certain bright objects follow. These certain bright objects are planets or the wandering stars! Same observations over a year can help you see the zodiacal signs, apply simple high-school mathematical principles to understand astrology.

Hobbies do not always have to lead to a scientific discovery but rather a means to engage oneself in the three aspects of life: physical, intellectual and spiritual. In the above example, the intellectual and spiritual aspects are quite evident. However, to enjoy the skies better, one has to move beyond the bright light in the city to a rural park and camp out the night. It is this camping that certainly adds to the physical aspect of the hobby and also a reason to be even closer to Mother Nature. Once you have a small or big telescope to carry, even more physical labour would be required compounded by the weather.

Well, a look at that ‘Black Blank place’ might not show a God, but witnessing some of celestial events definitely make one wonder on the incredible complexities of the space that has revolutionized scientific developments in all branches of science and engineering. Some of these events that either happened or are to happen during the COVID-19 are:

1. Moon appearing bigger than usual in May – a phenomenon called supermoon³
2. Mars Occultation – a rare eclipse like event with moon eclipsing Mars by being exactly between Earth and Mars⁴
3. Jupiter and Saturn conjunctions, bright joint guest appearances with their moons⁵
4. natural light shows like Perseids, Delta Aquarids, Lydrid meteor showers⁶
5. three different comets being visible at the same time before moving on to farther reaches of the solar system, of which comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3 was the most spectacular and visible to the naked eyes. The comet PANSTARRS (C/2017 T2) was also a spectacular view through 8" and bigger telescopes.⁷
6. Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune being visible at the same time.^{8 9}

Having started with a camera and a small refractor in my childhood, I have since upgraded to an 8" f4.9 Newtonian reflector. This has completely opened up the skies revealing many deep sky objects including galaxies millions of light years away. The equipment is quite heavy taking about 20min to setup and thus covers all the necessary hobby elements. (The red light in the image alongside is to preserve the human eye adaptation to dark skies. It is always better to not use any white light from smartphones, car headlights, etc as it will dramatically reduce the visibility of celestial objects.)¹⁰

I have often been fascinated by Astronomy since my childhood, because it shows the impermanence in permanence. I have been able to view and take photographs of distinctive celestial highlights like Bubble nebula, Lunar X (an optical illusion), Local Group of galaxies, Triangulum galaxy, the many globular and open clusters of stars, famous Virgo cluster of which our own Milky Way is a part of and the Markarian chain of galaxies in it that could be photographed with a normal camera.

I have attached some of my best captures during the season with brief info as presentation slides. Astronomy can be as cost effective or cost intensive as per one’s interest. All that is needed are dark skies and a childlike curiosity to explore the stars! A gallery of more images from my collection with acquisition details are available on astrobin.

Happy stargazing!!

	Name: Lunar X & V These are optical illusions seen on a specific phase of the moon. The image was taken using a camera and 600mm lens on a regular tripod.
	Name: M27 - Dumbbell Nebula. Distance: ~1227 light years This is a large nebula i.e., a gaseous region formed after a sun-like star exhausted all its resources for energy production by nuclear fusion and shedding all its remaining mass. The final tiny white dwarf can be seen in the middle of the nebula. This can been seen using binoculars.
	Name: M13 Distance: 22,200 to 25,000 light years A globular cluster in the Milky Way Galaxy - is the brightest visible in the night sky. This looks like a faint star to the naked eyes and small binoculars revels the fuzzball like structure of the cluster. The yellow stars are sun-like stars that are older than the brighter and younger blue stars in the middle.
	Name: Comet C/2017 T2 (PANSTARRS) Distance: 255 million km This image was taken on June 17, 2020 when the comet happened to pass in the field of view of NGC 3953. This was one of those chance imagery that the comet and the galaxy fit in the camera’s field of view.
	Name: M52 and NGC 7635 - Bubble nebula Distance: M52 – 46000 ly This was also a chance imaging. I had no idea of the existence of NGC 7635 until this image. I found the M52 and was taking images of it. When correcting the image for and light saturation, the pretty pink patch and the ring-like bubble popped up.
	Name: M33 – Triangulum Galaxy Distance: 2.7 million ly Once of our neighboring galaxies that is very faint but large. The galaxy is an example wherein there is no central super-massive blackhole. Faint cloudy arms are made of thousands of stars while bright the blue and purple areas are nebulae in that galaxy.
	Name: M101 – Pinwheel Galaxy Distance: 21 million ly This really faint and far away galaxy looked like a circular cloud when the skies were very clear. But this short exposure image reveals the detailed structure of the spiral arms, the bright nebulous regions and the galactic core.
	Name: M81 – Bode’s galaxy and M82 – Cigar galaxy Distances: * M81 – 8.5 million ly * M82 – 12 million ly Both the galaxies have active galactic nuclei and in M82, the bright Hydrogen plumes in the center of the galaxy are visible.
	Name: M64 – Black eye galaxy Distance: 17 million ly The distinct dark dust band in this galaxy gives it the unique appearance. Visually, gives a halo-like appearance to a bright central star.
	Name: NGC 6888 – Crescent Nebula Distance: 5000 ly The visible part is the tidal shockwave due to stellar wind and radiates in visible spectrum. DSLR cameras block much of IR light and hence much of it is still not visible. This image was taken using the DGM optics Nebula filter. Formed from the remains of a dead star that is not visible anymore. The star that is brightening it is a different star. the whole system is so large that light takes 26 years to travel from one end to the other.