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Guide to a different world up there

If you would like to observe Venus, Jupiter and Saturn in the dark skies with your naked eyes, this month is the best time, according to Sakher Abdullah A. Saif, head of the Amateur Astronomy League.

  • By Binsal Abdul Kader, Staff Reporter
  • Published: 23:56 May 9, 2008
  • Gulf News

  • Sakher Abdullah Saif shows a celestial map which locates the planets and other astronomical phenomena. It shows which planets and stars will be visible in the UAE sky on given days.
  • Image Credit: Ahmed Kutty/Gulf News

Abu Dhabi: If you would like to observe Venus, Jupiter and Saturn in the dark skies with your naked eyes, this month is the best time, according to Sakher Abdullah A. Saif, head of the Amateur Astronomy League.

Jupiter will be visible during the month on the eastern horizon after midnight. Saturn will be right overhead and Venus will be visible in the eastern horizon after 5.20am just before sunrise.

Mars was also visible until last Monday above the western horizon.

"A number of stars are also visible during this month," said Saif, an Emirati engineer who has studied astronomy as a hobby for the past 17 years.

"You don't need a telescope to observe them," he said. The League operates from the Emirates Heritage Club in Abu Dhabi.

The astronomer says observing planets and stars is a spiritual experience. "That different world in the sky links me to God."

He has developed a map which tells you which planets and stars will be visible in the UAE sky on certain days. He is sure the map can help laymen observe a "different world".

"I have just put my expertise on the map with the help of certain software available in the market."

In his lectures and stargazing trips with youngsters, he guides them on ways to tell a planet from a star.

"You have to just know three basic differences," said Saif. The planet always glows, looking whitish, is easily visible and it never twinkles. Stars also glow but they twinkle and look mainly bluish and sometimes red.

Stars look stationary compared to planets.

"They are seen in the same position for hundreds of years. But planets change position which can be detected in one month's observation. That's why ancestors called planets, moving stars," he said.

Saif's major contribution is his attempts to make children aware of astronomy, said Dr Hamid Al Naimiy, Dean of College of Arts and Sciences at University of Sharjah and President of the Arab Union of Astronomy and Space sciences.

"Saif was one of the founding members of the Emirates Astronomy Society," said Khalfan Sultan Al Nuaimi, Chairman of the UAE Astronomy Society.

Saif can be contacted at: sakher111@yahoo.com.

Do you find interest in astronomy going down? Do you think they have an impact on our personal lives? What is your view on the subject? Should it be promoted better among students?

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