COURTESY OF Nepal Astronomical Society
Above , participants observe a sunspot through a modified telescope at one of NASO ’ s solar outreach programs held at the organization ’ s office in 2016 . Below , participants and volunteers pose for a group photo after the Universe Awareness ( UNAWE ) Astronomy Workshop held in Sikles village in Kaski , Gandaki Province in 2017 .
Astronomy outreach is thriving in Nepal
By SURESH BHATTARAI
Guest Contributor
Astronomy is the oldest science that is embedded deeply in many cultures around the world . It is very good to know some initiatives that the International Astronomical Union ( IAU ) has taken over the past few years to connect with these cultures around the world to understand the development of astronomy from the beginning . With its mountains , Nepal has always been a pristine location for positional astronomy . Astronomers from Nepal have written books on positional astronomy , which have been circulated in Indian subcontinent countries . Nepal primarily followed the lunar calendar then adopted a lunisolar calendar later . Now , both of these calendars are valid and practiced in Nepal by several ethnic groups . However , modern astronomy is very new to Nepal as there is only one astronomical observatory operated by the government . With the evidence we have , we can assume that Halley ’ s Comet in 1986 created a new momentum for modern astronomy in Nepal particularly in outreach . This is the same year that one of the universities in Nepal established an observatory in Kathmandu which is no longer in operation . The observatory stopped operating less than a year after establishment . It was only in 2008 that the government of Nepal established an observatory at Nagarkot , one of the hill stations near
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