05 March 2022 | Iruway Farm, Tumkur, Karnataka
After spending a long period adapting to online learning and virtual astronomy programmes during the COVID-19 pandemic, CSTERC was finally ready to bring people together under the open sky again. On 05 March 2022, we organized the Moon Festival, our first in-person astronomy programme after the pandemic restrictions—a small but deeply memorable gathering that marked the beginning of a new chapter in our journey.
Ten participants from different parts of South India came together at Iruway Farm in Tumkur, Karnataka, a beautiful rural location with relatively dark skies away from the light pollution of Bengaluru. Rather than making it a conventional astronomy workshop, we designed the Moon Festival as a fun-filled adventure combined with astronomy, rural living, and community learning.
The farm became our temporary astronomy camp. We set up telescopes under the night sky, arranged a simple tent stay, and shared locally prepared village food. For many participants, the experience was not simply about observing the Moon and stars through a telescope—it was about stepping away from the city, spending a night in nature, and rediscovering the night sky in an intimate and immersive setting.
As darkness settled over the farm, the telescopes became the centre of our exploration. Participants had the opportunity to observe the Moon and other celestial objects while learning how to navigate and appreciate the night sky. The informal setting encouraged questions, conversations and shared discoveries, making astronomy feel less like a classroom subject and more like a collective adventure.
One of the most interesting aspects of the programme was that the learning did not stop with astronomy. Iruway Farm itself represented an experiment in localized technology and community-based learning. Participants experienced the innovative technologies developed by Dr. T. B. Dinesh, Co-founder of Iruway Farm, particularly his work around localized internet infrastructure and community learning. It offered us a glimpse of how technology can be adapted to serve communities and learning environments beyond conventional urban infrastructure.
The Moon Festival therefore became more than an astronomy event. It brought together astronomy, technology, rural living, community learning and adventure in a single experience. After months of screens and online interactions, sitting together beneath the real night sky had a significance that was difficult to reproduce virtually.
For CSTERC, the programme was an important reminder of why we began creating accessible astronomy experiences in the first place: to take science beyond classrooms and screens and place people directly in contact with nature, technology and the universe.
The Moon Festival of 2022 may have brought together only ten participants, but its impact on our journey was much larger. It was our return to the field, our return to the night sky, and one of the first steps towards rebuilding the culture of shared, hands-on astronomy after the pandemic.
Sometimes, the best astronomy classroom has no walls—only a telescope, a dark sky, a few curious minds, and the Moon above us.
