The Starscapes observatory in Mukteshwar, Uttarakhand, comes to life every day at dusk. To help the eyes acclimatize to the darkness, the heavy, retractable metal roof is initially drawn closed. Once closed, it is then opened to expose the night sky in all its stunning, ethereal grandeur. The four Galilean moons of Jupiter, Saturn’s magnificent rings, Venus’s phases, the moon’s surface characteristics, the Andromeda galaxy, and far-off nebulae are all brought closer to Earth by the motorized telescope that follows the stars.

“Watching the stars and planets in the bitter cold as the guides directed their green lasers was a wonderful experience. We could watch the stars vanishing and the birth of new ones. It sounds corny, but Mukteshwar truly does make you recognise how little you are in the grand scheme of things, according to Rohit Katiyar, the 39-year-old founder of a finance business who came there with his pals.

One of the roughly 15 privately run observatories that have appeared in the past three to five years, Starscapes serves astro tourists—children, teenagers, young adults, parents, and grandparents who are eager to learn more about the stars than they have from textbooks, NASA images, and YouTube explainers.

Astro Tourism has taken off and is now a booming business. like search of the captivating night sky, Indians are increasingly trekking to isolated areas like Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Ladakh, the Andaman Islands, and the guts of the countryside where light pollution is at a minimum. Private businesses are not the only ones actively engaging in this trend; amateur astronomy organizations, astrophotographers, and star-party aficionados are all doing so. In response, astro tourism hotspots are seeing a hyperlocal economic boom as restaurants, campgrounds, and homestays spring up to cater to these visitors’ requirements.

The Himalayan state of Uttarakhand stands out as the most well-liked location for astro tourism in India because of its vast towns and clear sky. Devasthal, the Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES) observatory, one of India’s greatest scientific observatories, is already located there. Along with a temporary camp in Benital, Starscapes has also erected observatories at Bhimtal and Kausani, both in Uttarakhand.

With plans to promote the gorgeous Benital as a “astro village,” the administration now wants to profit on the enthusiasm in stargazing and turn the state into an astro tourism hotspot.
Source- the print
Link:https://theprint.in/the-fineprint/indias-new-tourism-boom-is-in-the-sky-uttarakhand-to-andamans-stargazing-on-the-rise/1611317/