Hitchhiking to the Stars

AS A CHILD, growing up in New Delhi in the 1970s and early 1980s, like many other children with access to a terrace, Ramashish Ray and his siblings, after their dinners, would climb to the terrace during the city’s sweltering summers, sprinkle some water to cool down the place, and then lying on their cots, fall asleep. Ray how­ever would often gaze at the night sky and be mesmerised by what he saw.

“Delhi was not like what it is today,” he says. “You could still see the sky clearly, and the stars.”

Those nights had a deep impression on Ray. And later in his life, moving up the corporate ladder, working for firms like Nokia and living in countries like Singapore and Finland, when he acquired a new hobby in amateur astronomy, it was those hot summer nights in Delhi that he attributed his new passion to. Ray purchased a high-end Celestron telescope, and would often spend his free time in Finland and Singapore pursuing this new passion. When he returned to Delhi, he stored this telescope in a second house he had built in Kausani, Uttarakhand, and trained his staff on how to use it so the telescope would not fall into disuse.

Every few days, however, the staff in this house would call saying they needed to let some people use the telescope. It began with their friends, and local villagers, but soon a steady number of individuals were trooping into Ray’s house almost every night to stargaze. “It was becoming a nuisance. Because all this was happening right in the house. And even my staff was complaining that rather than housekeeping, this was all they were doing,” he says.

To resolve this issue, Ray built an observatory nearby and began charging a small fee for its use. But the observatory turned into a roaring success. Within a few months, they had done over 4,800 tickets. “It wasn’t much money, but if in Kausani with a population of about 5,000 people, which gets like 60,000 tourists in the whole year, we were seeing so many uses of the observatory, obviously it was something,” he says.

So, Ray, along with Paul Savio, a former colleague at Samsung, developed the concept further. They began to add to the observato­ry at Kausani things like experience centres, a merchandise store, and building content that would support such an observatory. The duo also formed a new venture, named Starscapes, through which they began to build and run observatories elsewhere.

Today, Starscapes runs four observatories—three in Uttara­khand, and one more in Coorg, Karnataka—each of these com­plete with advanced telescopes, museums and experience centres, merchandise stores and workshops on astrophotography. It has also tied up with hospitality partners like hotel chains and clubs to run stargazing facilities at a number of conducive locations. They conduct astro-parties and astro-camps, holding astronomy-related events in remote locations with great unhindered views of the cosmos; are currently working with the Uttarakhand tourism board to develop an astro-vil­lage in Benital; and are work­ing towards scaling up and building more observatories across more conducive spots in the country.

“It’s a very interesting time now, and you can see that there is quite a bit of interest in this [amateur as­tronomy],” says Ray.

Starscapes is today one of several firms in this growing new field of astro-tourism. A new public interest in space—building upon the recent thrust in explora­tions like Chandrayaan-3’s landing on the moon, the successful launch of Aditya-L1, efforts by space agencies like NASA and China’s CNSA, and those by billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos—the growth of amateur astronomy clubs in India, and the efforts to preserve dark skies by some indi­viduals and organisations, are fuelling a new interest in combin­ing astronomy with tourism.

“The last time there was so much excitement about space in In­dia was Rakesh Sharma [the Air Force pilot who became the first Indian to travel to space in 1984]. In the last few years, space has become cool. I mean, I see five-year-old kids talking about rockets and spacecraft,” Ray says. This interest in space now appears to be spilling into amateur astronomy. “Just look at the number of people who watched the Chandrayaan landing. It was millions; as though they were watching a cricket match,” Ray adds.

The pandemic also appeared to have been a catalyst. With restrictions on movement imposed, and most industries shut down, the pollution levels decreased and the views of the skies improved. Many individuals, bored at home, also, it appears, be­gan to get hold of telescopes and look into the skies. “There was a sudden surge in popularity during the pandemic. Many people were stargazing and this habit just stayed on,” says Neeraj Ladia, a Chennai-based amateur astronomer and astrophotographer, who is a popular figure in the community. Ladia also runs Space Arcade, which sells astronomy-related equipment like telescopes, and, he says, he noticed rapid sales throughout the pandemic. It has continued to stay high even beyond.

While amateur astronomy grows in the country, those who do pick it up as a passion, almost immediately face a big challenge. For great views of the cosmos, an essential ingredient is a dark sky unhindered by artificial light, something almost impossible to find in cities. Even small towns and villages are rapidly getting urbanised, and the use of artificial light is growing.

“For astrophotographers and astronomy enthusiasts, light pollution is the biggest thing that one needs to understand. Light pollution is basically the blocking of the incoming light of celes­tial bodies by our artificial light,” explains Ladia. “So, you need it [the surround­ings] to be dark enough to see that celestial light. Oth­erwise, your city’s light is so bright that it creates a sort of blanket over your city and blocks the incoming light, the stars and other objects.”

There is now an effort to protect spaces conducive to astronomy from light pollu­tion. Hanle, a remote loca­tion, about 4,500m above sea level in Ladakh, where the Indian Institute of As­trophysics runs one of the highest astronomy stations in the world, has emerged as the top spot in an amateur astrono­mer’s list of pilgrimage sites. With little or no light pollution, it is said to provide one of the best views of the sky in India. In Decem­ber 2022, the government declared this area a dark sky reserve. In such a space, restrictions are placed on the use of artificial light, both at home and on vehicles, and there are requirements like the usage of thick curtains on windows and doors. Earlier this year, a US-based organisation dedicated to preserving dark skies world­wide, the International Dark-Sky Association (IDA), accredited the 741sqkm Pench Tiger Reserve in Maharashtra as a dark sky park. The Pench Forest Department and an amateur astronomer named Abhishek Pawse who had volunteered with IDA in the past, had worked for this tag. They had got the villages near this location, according to reports, to reduce light pollution, modifying street­lights, for instance, to point towards the ground, and not upwards. Similar efforts by government bodies and amateur astrono­mers where they get locals involved in restricting the usage of artificial light to create pockets of dark skies seem to be afoot in several loca­tions across the country.

“Having such areas where light pollution is controlled is very impor­tant to ensure that interest in astronomy grows,” says Narendra Gor, a Kutch-based amateur astronomer whose Stargazing India provides astronomy facilities. Gor, initially a key member of the Kutch Amateur Astrono­mers Club which tried to in­culcate an interest in astron­omy, established Stargazing India when he witnessed an interest in astronomy among amateurs. The Rann of Kutch, with its unhindered views and minimal light pollution, also provides an ideal location for astronomy, and Gor has been hosting a popular astronomy facility for those inter­ested during the Rann Utsav, a popular annual festival that lasts for about four months. Gor also works with other tourism departments and firms to set up facilities. One of these is an ongoing project in Madhya Pradesh, where he is training locals in certain areas that are being developed for astro-tourism so that they are able to work as astronomy guides who can operate telescopes and hold forth on what amateurs view in the skies.“When you involve locals this way, you also incentivise them to become part of the whole journey, and help them want to reduce the light pollution that is caused,” he says.

IN LADAKH, SONAL ASGOTRAA has developed a different model around astro-tourism. A few years ago, her partner who runs Global Himalayan Expedition, a social enterprise that facilitates solar energy projects in remote Himalayan locations, found himself, along with a local, lost during one of their trips in Ladakh. “They were literally on some pass at 14,000 feet in the dead of the night. And they didn’t know where to go because they were completely lost. And then the local person who was with him looks at the pattern of the stars in the sky, and says, ‘Maybe we should head that way’.”

That individual turned out to be right and the two found their way back home. But when Asgotraa learnt about this episode, it struck a chord with her. “There is so much local knowledge about stars and the cosmos. And just because some locals may not pos­sess ‘scientific knowledge’, or own telescopes, they are unable to leverage this beautiful aspect [of great views of the sky] they have in their backyard,” Asgotraa says.

So, in 2019, Asgotraa came up with the idea of homestays, whose hosts are equipped with a GoTo Dobsonian telescope and the knowledge of the skies. Called Astrostays, she worked with about 35 women from 15 different villages—since most men travel to work in Leh dur­ing the tourist season—to set up five such homestays in the locality of Maan.

What is different about this concept from the others is that it is entirely commu­nity-driven. All the money that is generated goes back to the community, and the emphasis isn’t just on as­tronomy, but also on the cul­ture of the locals and what role the local understand­ing of the cosmos plays in the community. Tourism around astronomy has grown in Ladakh, especially ever since Hanle was declared a dark sky reserve, but this hasn’t so far, as Asgotraa mentions, involved the local culture much. “Astronomy tends to be this very closed group. It’s not very easy to access its resources, the knowledge or the skills. So, in a way, we wanted to break that model and bring it out of these closed rooms to the local communities,” she says.

Seeing the success of the concept, the head lama of Phyang monastery in Ladakh invited Asgotraa to set up another astro­nomical facility nearby. What’s interesting about this facility, called Cosmohub, is that it intertwines a secular experience of astronomy with a tour of the monastery and a Tibetan Buddhist perspective of cosmology.

Asgotraa is now working towards further developing Astrostays. A replica of Cosmohub should be up and running in Nubra, Ladakh, in a few months, and there are plans afoot towards launching Astrostays in Meghalaya too.

Back in Delhi, Ray is discussing the untapped potential of astro-tourism in the country. So far, he estimates, about 1 lakh individuals have used Starscape’s telescopes. He calls these look­ups. His mission, he says, is to ensure at least one million lookups. “We are looking down at the road all our lives, either driving or with a backpack on our backs. I want people to look up at the heavens and wonder where you’ve come from,” he says.

Occasionally, a child will look through a telescope in one of his observatories for the first time and remark that it looks noth­ing like what he has seen on TV. “I tell them, ‘Yes, that is because telescope live viewing won’t be the same as a processed image [of a TV]. But the difference is that you are time-travelling. Because the photon which is going into your eyes and interacting with your sensory perceptions has travelled millions of kilometres, some­times millions of light years. And you’re interacting with that pho­ton… you suddenly become one with the cosmos because you’re feeling and touching something. Your body is sensing something, which may have travelled billions of kilometres,’” Ray says.

Do the children flip out when he explains it that way?

“Always,” says Ray. “Even the adults.”

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