The summer of 2024 was a hot one, even in Bengaluru, which usually receives respite in the form of March and April rains. A side-effect of the missing showers was an unprecedented series of cloudless nights. For the stargazing community of Azim Premji University, this was good news. ​“We got an unbroken three-and-a-half to four months of crystal clear skies. It was so clear that we had no trouble finding some very faint objects and star clusters,” says Proteep Mallik, who has led stargazing sessions at the university since 2015. 

The university’s stargazing journey is tied to Proteep’s own. Despite being an expert in optics and having visited large telescopes around the world, Proteep had not manually operated a telescope by himself until he joined the university as a physics faculty member. But when his colleague Kripa Gowrishankar donated her 4‑inch telescope to the university, he was tempted to give it a go. Once he got the hang of it, he began inviting his students to join him on his trips to the rooftop with the telescope. These were among the first batches of physics students at the university. One of them was Shravya Shenoy, who is currently pursuing a PhD in astrophysics. 

“It was a small little telescope, you know, and this was in the old campus which was basically two buildings separated by a lawn,” Shravya reminisces. Very soon, the word spread and they were joined by students across disciplines and also other faculty members. Besides giving Shravya and the other students their first opportunities to handle a telescope, the stargazing nights ended up being a fun exercise in community-building. 

As far as Proteep was concerned, getting students to look at the sky itself was a victory. ​“The telescope is immaterial. If you just get into the habit of going to the roof of a building for an unobstructed view of the sky, you will see the moon, and quickly learn to identify planets. And if you spend a few hours observing the sky regularly for a few months, you will notice patterns of change due to the Earth’s rotation around the sun. These are things we read about in textbooks but it’s really cool to actually see it.” 

The last season was particularly special for him to witness as an educator. ​“Many students came to observe the night sky every Tuesday from January to April. To do this, and be able to see how things have changed over the period, is eye-opening. They began to realise by themselves that Orion was setting earlier than before and by the end of the semester, they made sure to point the telescope at it in the beginning, knowing it would set soon.” 

Developing this kind of intuition is extremely relevant to astronomers who have to be very strategic while requesting observation time in large multinational telescopes. For example, if one wants to observe objects in the Orion constellation, they need to know when is the best time for this. ​“To watch students come to this realisation on their own was quite wondrous,” says Proteep. 

One of Shravya’s most memorable stargazing nights at the university did not even involve a telescope. ​“The Perseids meteor shower was expected one night, so about 15 or 20 of us brought out our yoga mats and blankets and just laid down on the lawn,” she says.

She vividly remembers the adrenaline rush that accompanied a sighting. ​“It took a while for all our eyes to get adjusted to the sky. When just one or two people shouted, we thought it could be a placebo effect, but since many of us shouted at the same time, we knew it must have been a real thing!” 

The success of the stargazing nights was followed by the formation of the Physics and Astronomy club, one of whose activities was to invite scientists from the outside for talks at the university. It was during one such event that Shravya got to meet Jayant Murthy, a senior professor at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), Bengaluru. ​“I distinctly remember my classmates Siddharth, Anumita and I were standing near the sports field with Professor Murthy when he told us, ​‘You should build your own telescope’,” says Shravya. ​“For some reason, my brain just stuck with that idea.”

So when it was time for Shravya to decide on an honour’s project, she presented Proteep with the idea of building a radio telescope. Unlike optical telescopes which collect visible light waves, radio telescopes collect radio waves emitted by astronomical objects in the sky. Since radio wave receivers were easily accessible in the form of TV dish antennae, she believed – and Proteep agreed – that this was a viable project.

Admittedly, it turned out to be a lot harder than they expected, but the process of giving it a go itself was hugely rewarding for student and teacher. ​“I was lucky enough to go to a summer school for radio astronomy in Gauribidanur, Karnataka. And I think that was the point when I realised I liked working at an observatory,” she muses. 

Six years later, Shravya finds herself doing exactly that. At the time of this interview, she was in the middle of a stint as support astronomer at the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes, La Palma, Spain. That means that when a visiting scientist comes to use the telescope, Shravya shows them how to set it up, change the filters and point it to the right direction. 

The 2.5‑metre optical Isaac Newton Telescope is rather historic, having started operations in the UK in 1967 and later moved to La Palma for better viewing conditions. It’s one of the last remaining manual telescopes, so that’s why it’s crucial to have skilled handlers like Shravya around. 

Incidentally, the Isaac Newton Telescope was decommissioned in June. In fact, Shravya had just witnessed its final days of operation. ​“It’s a very spooky building,” she says, having just returned after spending two whole nights at the observatory. ​“The architecture is old and sometimes when you close one door, the wind causes another one to open,” she laughs. 

Overall, the young astronomer is content with how far she has come. ​“It’s quite a journey to come from stargazing with a small telescope in the backyard of the university to actually being able to operate this massive one,” says Shravya.

For her PhD research, Shravya works with radio telescopes to study galaxy evolution. ​“We try to probe galaxies which are very far away or way back in time with radio data,” she elaborates. Looking at the same region can reveal completely different things depending on the kind of telescope used. ​“For example, with optical, you can directly see how many stars are forming, whereas with radio, you see more of the black holes at the centre of galaxies, and the beautiful jets they emit.” 

A passion for stargazing has influenced not just Shravya’s life, but also her former classmate Siddharth, who is also currently pursuing a PhD in the field. Today, the university has several telescopes including an 8‑inch one that was purchased in 2017 precisely to encourage the burgeoning astro culture on campus. Since then, Proteep has guided many more students through projects in astronomy and instrumentation at the university. 

Thanks to this strong culture of stargazing, new batches of astro enthusiasts arrive on the terrace every year, eager to see specific comets or a supernova they read about. It’s this enthusiasm that has kept Proteep motivated over so many years. The upcoming winter-spring will mark the tenth season of stargazing at the university, and it’s safe to say that Proteep Mallik will not be free on Tuesday night! 

About Proteep

Proteep Mallik is a faculty member at Azim Premji University. He has enthusiastically tracked the rapid evolution of telescopes. Read more here.

About the Author

Nandita Jayaraj is a science writer and communications consultant at Azim Premji University. She may be contacted at nandita.​jayaraj@​apu.​edu.​in