Siliguri SWAN’s help, the sky’s the limit

Sky Watchers of North Bengal or SWAN is not only fulfilling the dreams of school and college-going students, but also inspiring poor children from slum areas to look up towards the sky with a crystal-clear telescopic view.

Affiliated to the Confederation of Indian Amateur Astronomers (CIAA), Astronomers Without Borders (AWB) and recognised by NASA Afterschool Astronomy Initiative, SWAN, a totally self-funded organisation, has become very popular among students in northern India as well as Nepal.

The name SWAN first appeared in public platform on the face of a huge Translite hung in the main entrance of Kolkata’s MP Birla Planetarium with a brilliant photograph of Comet Hale Bopp taken by SWAN members from an altitude of 12,000 ft. The image flashed in NASA’s web archive to become the first website page dedicated to someone from this part of the country. The page is still alive.

The man who has been promoting SWAN relentlessly since 1987 is Debasis Sarkar and he leads a small team from Siliguri. Children from the slum areas of Siliguri and its surroundings have now started following Debasis just to take a peek at the sky through his telescope at a phenomenon they have never experienced before.

A junior SWAN member named Siddhartha (Subham) on Sunday pointed a telescope at a gloomy sky around 6 pm from Bagajatin Park to give the crowd gathered the pleasure of the first telescopic view of the moon. 

The group included more than 200 poor children from the slums of town and they expressed extreme delight to get to view the sky through Subham’s telescope. Every child was thrilled and began shouting - “Dada aur ek baar please”.

“I feel happy when these children get a chance to view the sky through our little effort, as these poor chaps never get such an opportunity,” said Debasis. 

SWAN has brought along a lot of fame to him, admits Debasis. He was among the 24 lucky individuals chosen from across the world by the Royal Observatory of Belgium to conduct the Polarimetric Study of the Solar Corona during a total solar eclipse in 1999 from Virandyara village of Gujarat at the Indo-Pakistan border. 

The National Film Board of Canada subsequently made a full-length documentary titled ‘Shadow Chasers’ on the eclipse-oriented activities of four persons, namely Debasis Sarkar from India, Alain Cirou from France, Paul Houde from Austria and Olivier Staiger from Germany. The film is considered an icon of inspiration by astronomy enthusiasts across the globe.

SWAN is the only amateur organisation in India so far to showcase celestial events ‘live’ through its own webcast channel. It has an estimated 200,000 viewers from 168 countries.(EOI)