khagol_123

MoonChallenge In order to keep general public occupied with sky related activities during the lockdown, we presented them a "Moon Challenge", in which they have to look at theMoon at least once every day, over one complete lunar cycle of phases, i.e., fromone newmoon to the next. The SciPOP team also did this at the same time. Starting April 23, 2020, many people joined in this, and strived to be with us through the whole lunar cycle. Importantly, many videos were released daily so as to give more information about the Moon and related occurrences in the sky. Several amateur astronomers also joined in by sending their pictures of the Moon during this period, whichwere an excellent value addition to the effort. The event was conducted by Samir Dhurde (IUCAA) with the help of Atharva Pathak, and was actively helped with regular telescopic pictures of theMoon by amateur astronomers Revati Dokhe,AnirudhThakar, and PrabhakaranKutti. Zero ShadowDay To make it a nationwide celebration, a series of short animated videos explaining the concept of Zero Shadow Day in English and Marathi was published in early May 2020. These involved how to observe the zero shadow day using things lying around, and hence to understand the motion of the sun in the sky. General public fromdifferent parts of Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Delhi, and Bihar participated, and performed the experiments and shared their experiences with us. No. 123 - July 2020 7