Anything that can go wrong,

Will go wrong. Yes, it is the infamous Murphy’s Law. A remark made by a disgusted engineer took the form of an adage, which is widely used today in many of the daily life situations.

It was in 1949, when the U.S Air-Force was carrying out experiments to check the effect of a sudden deceleration on a person in a crash. When the series of tests was started, the instruments for the measurement of gravitational force on the chimpanzees provided no reading. Captain Edward A. Murphy, an aerospace engineer working on the project found that the sensors were improperly installed; therefore, no reading could be expected. An irritated Murphy shouted about the technician responsible “If that guy has any way of making a mistake, he will.”

After the correct installation of the gauges, tests were conducted successfully. In a press conference, a question was raised by the media person that why there weren’t any injuries in the tests. Dr. John Stapp, a physician at U.S Military replied “It’s because we always take Murphy’s Law in consideration, and we counter all the possible failures before they even occur”.

This was the coinage of the world’s most famous adage ever. It was later modified to “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong”. With the passage of time, almost all the real life scenarios which tend to trouble us, like failure of a planning, getting late for a bus were termed as Murphy’s Laws.

To date, there are thousands of adages which are now named as Murphy’s Laws. Remember, these laws were not created by Murphy, but even then they are called Murphy’s Laws. They are really interesting and often reflect the daily situations experienced by all of us in a manner similar to the law itself. Some of my most favorite Murphy’s Laws are:

• If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong.
  Extreme version:
  If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the FIRST to go wrong.
• If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which something can go wrong, and circumvent these, then a fifth way, unprepared for, will promptly develop.
• If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.
• In nature, nothing is ever right. Therefore, if everything is going right … something is wrong.
• No matter how perfect things are made to appear, Murphy’s Law will take effect and screw it up.

Apart from the above laws, there are some of the special laws which have been developed by various people around the world, but will always be accredited to Murphy.

Murphy’s Law of Thermodynamics
Things get worse under pressure.

The Murphy Philosophy
Smile . . . tomorrow will be worse.

Murphy’s Law of Research
Enough research will tend to support whatever theory.

Research supports a specific theory depending on the amount of funds dedicated to it.

Murphy’s Laws of Gravitation:

• A falling object will always land where it can do the most damage.
• A shatterproof object will always fall on the only surface hard enough to crack or break it.
• A paint drip will always land on the carpet and will not be discovered until it has dried.

• A valuable dropped item will always fall into an inaccessible place (a diamond ring down the drain, for example) – or into the garbage disposal while it is running.
• The chance of the bread falling with the buttered side down is directly proportional to the cost of the carpet.

Murphy’s Transportation Laws:

• If you think you have lots of time before your bus, you read the timetable wrong.
• If you’re early the bus is late. If you’re late, the bus was early.
• The bus you plan to take always leaves five minutes before you reach the bus stop. The bus you do take is always ten minutes late.
• While at the railway station waiting for the train, you decide to go in the cafeteria for dining, the train will arrive the moment you start your dinner.

• If you seem to catch the last bus of the day, it left two minutes earlier.
• The more times you ask the driver to tell you when to get off the bus, the chance he won’t tell you is bigger.

Murphy’s Educational Laws:

• A subject interesting to the teacher will bore students.

• Students who are doing better are credited with working harder. If children start to do poorly, the teacher will be blamed.
• Eighty percent of the final exam will be based on the one lecture you missed and from the one book you didn’t read.
• Every instructor assumes that you have nothing else to do except study for that instructor’s course.
• The library will close 5 minutes before you remember that you left your book bag inside.
  Extension: It will be Saturday, and it won’t open until Monday.
  Extension: Your half-finished term paper (due Monday morning) and all your research will be inside.

• On a test day, at least 15% of the class will be absent

• First Law of Final Exams
  Pocket calculator batteries that have lasted all semester will fail during the math final.
  And: If you bring extra batteries, they will be defective.
• Second Law of Final Exams
  In your toughest final, the most distractingly attractive student in class will sit next to you for the first time.

More Laws:

• No matter how long or how hard you shop for an item, after you’ve bought it, it will be on sale somewhere cheaper.
• The other queue always moves faster.
• Your best golf shots always occur when playing alone.
• The worst golf shots always occur when playing with someone you are trying to impress.

• If you want something bad enough, chances are you won’t get it.

Now read all these laws carefully and you will notice that you have been through most of these situations in your life many a times. Hence it was proved that Murphy’s Laws work and the chance of the failure of any law of Murphy stands no chance.

Remember once again,

No matter how perfect things are made to appear, Murphy’s Law will take effect and screw it up.

Cold Night, Mosquitoes, Stars

Ramiz Qureshi from Karachi was online. He told me that he was experiencing almost 100% transparent skies there. I thought to check out my portion of sky and therefore I went up the roof at around 12:30.

Tested the focus of my 10×50 binoculars at Jupiter, which was setting in South-West.

After Jupiter, I looked for Messier 31, The Andromeda Galaxy.

The time was 12:40 when I started looking for it. The sky was clear but there was much light pollution from neighboring homes.

My binoculars doesn’t give a wide-field view when I observe with spectacles on. So for observing I have to take out my spectacles. When I do so, I can’t see the stars and that makes a big problem for me.

Since I had no one to point at the location of objects with a laser pointer, I was at my own. It is said that “need is the mother of invention” therefore I used the water tank of my home as a guide.

I moved in such a position relative to the water tank that all the stars of Constellation Cassiopeia were hidden except the brightest star of it, Shedir (Alpha Cassiopeiae).

Map of Constellation Cassiopeia and location of Shedir

From Shedir, I took a way towards the left and a little down towards the Andromeda Galaxy. It was a small white cloudy thing in the sky. Though I couldn’t identify it as a galaxy, but it surely was distinguishable from the other stars in a sense that there was some cloudy appearance.

M31 - Andromeda Galaxy in Constellation Andromeda

The Andromeda Galaxy is 2.5 Million Light Years away from the Earth. Do you know what does that mean? It means that light takes 2.5 Million Years to reach the Earth from M31. Compare it with the time of 1.2 second light takes to reach from the Moon to Earth.

Map of Constellation Andromeda and location of M31

After the Andromeda Galaxy, I tried to find NGC 752, an open cluster in the Constellation Andromeda but failed.

Seven Sisters were walking towards the West from the East, so I thought to gaze at them as they moved. They look really beautiful. Pleiades is an open cluster in Constellation Taurus. With naked eye, only 7 stars are visible but advanced observations have shown that the cluster contains about 1000 stars.

Messier 45, The Pleiades in Constellation Taurus

This cluster has been known since many ages. It has been found that Babylonian civilization knew about Pleiades cluster in 23rd century BC.

Recently a star disk called Nebra Sky Disk has been discovered which has been successfully dated back to 1600 BC. The disk has illustration of Pleiades on it.

Nebra Sky Disk, dated back to 1600 BC

After the Pleiades, I went for Double Cluster in Constellation Perseus at 12:54 AM.

For finding Double Cluster, I went straight up from the star Ruchbah (Delta Cassiopeiae) towards the star Mirphak (Alpha Persei). Between these two stars lies the Double Cluster NGC 884-NGC 869.

The Double Cluster in Constellation Perseus

Afterwards, I thought to change the position and move at some other place for observing. This time I aimed for searching the South-Eastern region of the sky.

The brave hunter Orion was rising up with his criminal looking dog Canis Major (Big Dog)

Orion and Canis Major are very prominent constellations which are easily identifiable.

Map of Constellation Orion

According to Greek mythology, Orion was a hunter whom Zeus elevated to heavens and placed among the stars.

Constellation Orion by Johannes Hevelius, 1690

Nearby Orion, the dogs of Orion are also present, namely Canis Major and Canis Minor. These are also constellations and have mythologies associated with them.

I tried to find NGC 2362 in the Constellation Canis Major. Since I was using Stellarium software for navigating through the sky, I easily located the site of it. But due to light pollution, I couldn’t notice any cluster there. For locating NGC 2362, I went left from Wezen (Delta Canis Majoris).

Map of Constellation Canis Major and location of several DSO's in it

An asterism by the name of “The Boomerang” is also in the Constellation Canis Major. 6 stars form a pattern similar to that of a boomerang.

Now I once again turned towards the Constellation Cassiopeia and this time, my target was the Owl Cluster (NGC 457).

NGC 457 - The Owl Cluster in Constellation Cassiopeia

At 1:13, I observed the most famous, the most brilliant and the most favorite object for the astronomers of all ages, The Orion Nebula, Messier 42.

The Orion Nebula in the Constellation Orion

Astronomers have studied Orion nebula extensively and the research on this nebula has told answered many questions of our’s regarding the formation of stars and planetary system through the collapse of gaseous clouds. Orion Nebula is a large star forming nursery where clouds of gas and dust collapse to form stars.

In my binoculars, I was able to notice tightly packed luminosity with some nebulosity around it. Imagine you are seeing from the distance of 20 meters, 4 florescent bulbs forming a close square with a white fishnet put over them, and behind these 4 bulbs, thousands of pearls are scattered on a black background, this is what exactly the Orion Nebula looks like in a binoculars similar to mine.

The time was 1:26 and mosquitoes were really annoying me. Thankfully I was wearing a jacket which prevented me from their stings. But their buzzing was really a headache.

Ramiz asked me to look for an open cluster Messier 47 in Canis Major.

If you move left from Sirius (Alpha Canis Majoris), you can easily find M47.

Open Cluster M47

Ramiz told me that he was leaving and that he wanted to give me a final recommendation. He asked me to observe NGC 2244, an open cluster in Constellation Monoceros. He also warned me that it was a hard target. And I thought he was joking. But as soon as I tracked the location of it in Stellarium, the first words to come out from my mouth were “Oh My Lord, Ramiz where have you stuck me”. It was so high in the sky that my neck was almost breaking and I felt like someone was pressing my throat.

If you draw a straight line from Procyon (Alpha Canis Minoris, the brightest star of Constellation Canis Minor), to Betelgeuse (Alpha Orionis, the brightest star of Constellation Orion), then NGC 2244 lies in the middle of this line. Tried so hard to find it. Found. But couldn’t concentrate on it for even 10 seconds because of high pain in neck and spine.

Open Cluster NGC 2244 in Constellation Monoceros

The time was 1:35, I marked the session end and started writing this report for all of you.