34th Annual Report (2021-22)

96 Astropix, a webinar series specialising in astrophotography, was organised by LIGO- I n d i a E P O t o i n s p i r e b u d d i n g astrophotographers and astronomy enthusiasts. A set of five webinar sessions th were conducted by experts between 15 th Nov - 15 Dec 2021. The webinars covered a range of topics from the basics of astrophotography and photography, essential equipment to advanced skills, to post-processing using free software. The session also comprehensively explored the various aspects that go into planning a th th Astropix Online Astrophotography Webinar series and Contest - 15 November to 15 December 2021 successful astrophotography shoot. Several free-to-use PC, smartphones and web-based apps and services were recommended to help in planning the shoot. One session was also conducted in Hindi for the benefit of the participants. The Q&A sessions after the webinars saw enthusiastic interaction from participants who were delighted at the opportunity to get expert advice. The sessions were attended by more than 150 participants on Zoom and the recordings on LIEPO's YouTube Channel have around 1000 views to date. An astrophotography competition was announced after the last webinar to encourage participants and viewers to take up this fascinating hobby. The competition is currently open and collecting entries from th th 15 December 2021 to 15 January 2022. This activity was coordinated by Prof. Debarati Chatterjee (Professor at IUCAA and Chairperson of LIEPO) with assistance and technical support from Vaibhav Savant (LIEPO Coordinator at IUCAA) and GWSCP participants. As part of the same anniversary celebrations, a video of Prof. Abhay Ashtekar with Prof. Martin Hendry was released on 15th September 2021. In this, the speakers discuss the futureofgravitational-wave LIMMA conference videos CONFERENCES astronomy in India. This was the first of a series of videos shot during the The “Multi- messenger Astronomy in the Era of LIGO- India ( LIMMA) conference in 2019, where theworld's leading experts on gravitational wave detectors had gathered to discuss the new physics and astrophysics they may unravel in the era of LIGO-India. th th (LIMMA) conference was held from 15 -18 January 2019 at Khandala. LIEPO organised and recorded interviews of GW experts from around the world who were present here. The LIMMA video featuring Prof. Peter Shawhan (Associate Professor and Associate Chair for Graduate Education at th LIMMA video - Peter in conversation with Varun - 6 October 2021 the University of Maryland) with Prof. Varun Bhalerao (Associate Professor at IIT- th Bombay) was released on 6 October 2021. In this video we hear about Prof. Peter Shawhan's journey into the world of gravitational waves, starting with the early days of the LIGOdetectors in 1990and the various skill sets required for working at advanced gravitational-wave detectors such as LIGO. The video was released on LIGO-India EPO's YouTube channel which hasmore than6200 subscribers as of now. The LIGO-India EPO team facilitated the press release in India for the latest paper submitted to arXiv by the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, the Virgo Collaboration and the KAGRA Collaboration on the “ All-sky, all-frequency directional search for persistentgravitationalwavesfrom Press Release for LVK All Sky All Frequency paper - 20th October 2021 PRESS RELEASE Advanced LIGO's and Advanced Virgo's first three observing runs - O1, O2 and O3” . A team of gravitational-wave researchers from IUCAA have consistently been contributing to this topic. The press release highlighted the contributions of these and other LIGO-India Scientific Collaboration members towards this study. A simplified summary of the paper was shared with press contacts and also circulated on LIGO-India EPO's social media channels - Facebook, Instagramand Twitter to share the excitement with gravitational- wave enthusiasts. An illustrated children's pop-up book in Marathi - “Aika Brahmand Kay Mhante'' (Listen to the Universe) was launched on the occasion of the anniversary of the first direct detection of gravitational waves by LIGO. This book was written by LIGO-India's colleagues fromtheUniversity of Glasgow, “Listen to the Universe” children's book launch on GW discovery anniversary BOOK LAUNCH IUCAA SciPOP in collaboration with LIGO- India EPO and is supported partly by the Newton Bhabha Fund. The book has initially been published in Marathi, the native language of school children in the vicinity of the LIGO-India observatory site in Maharashtra. The book reading videoswere premiered on LIGO-India EPO's YouTube channel on 14th September 2021, in three languages, including Marathi, English as well as Hindi, in the spirit of the Hindi Divas whichwas also celebrated on the same day.