Voice Conference, 17th of July

I set a voice conference event for some Astro discussions. The time I chose was 10 PM. Amjad said he might not be available for the conference because 10-11 PM is loadshedding time. He got angry on me because I had set the event without anyone’s consent.

In the evening, Amjad asked me to come to his home with EVO Broadband. I was ready to go but unexpected guests showed up at his place right before the conference. So he came to my place with his laptop.

He parked the car in my street, we sat on the backseat of his car and started the conference near around 10:15. Sir Umair (Vice President, Lahore Astronomical Society) joined us at 10:25. Mudassir Ibrahim and Ebrahim Haq joined the conference from Karachi.

Sir Umair first told us about a website arxiv.org He said that this website provides all research papers on Astronomy with full content. Later he told us about new telescopic mounts without gears.

I asked Sir Umair about time travel and whether it was possible that a person can go in past and kill himself. Sir Umair said that it wasn’t possible and that it was just a hypothesis because killing oneself in past would cancel his presence in the future. If time travel is possible, the history/past would be read-only and one wouldn’t be able to change any event.

I had a question about black holes in my mind and Sir Umair answered it. I had asked whether it was possible to observe the surroundings of blackholes or not. Since light can not escape a black hole, a black hole isn’t visible optically. Sir Umair said that with the help of spectrograph, we can detect black holes.

Mudassir asked Sir Umair about Astrology and the effect of stars and planets over human beings according to Science. Sir Umair said that Astronomers totally reject the concept of any effect of planets and stars on the lives because its an unscientific thing. He told that the movement of planets from constellation to constellation is studied by Astrologers in a different perspective while Astronomers study it according to Physics.

The inductance of Pluto in the list of planets was also discussed. The question was raised by Amjad. Sir Umair agreed with the kicking out of Pluto from the list of planets and he explained a number of reasons for it. He said that Pluto has an orbit which is different from the orbits of other planets, its composition is more like that of a comet rather than planets and moreover, the moon Charon of Pluto keeps destabilizing the orbit of Pluto with its gravitational pull. So it was a good decision to keep Pluto out.

Extra-solar planets and their discovery was discussed. It was told by Sir Umair that more than 440 extra-solar planets have been discovered so far and more are being discovered almost every week.

Sir Umair told us that Obsession 18 inch telescope can easily attain the magnification of 900x. He told that multiplying the diameter of a telescope’s mirror with 50 gives the highest possible magnification. So Obsession can go till 900x with a smile.

Ebrahim’s mic was not working so he kept listening to all these points but never spoke. I had expected to hear from him about Cosmology.

And the screen of Amjad’s laptop went black due to low battery power. I rushed to my home and brought my own laptop but Sir Umair had already left due to some important work.

Mudassir was given the link of Karachi Astronomers’s Group.

Inside the car was soooooo warm but I say “Anything for Astronomy”.

It was a really nice conference. Everyone who joined enjoyed it alot.