Report on Departmental Night Observation

Raghav Govind Jha

St.Xaviers College & Bose Institute Department of Physics Kolkata 700091

October 7, 2012

Brief Review

Not many people are aware that Bose Institute (dont confuse with S.N.Bose Centre for Basic Sciences) also has a campus in Falta. The spectacular setting of the institute just next to the Hooghly is certainly a conducive environment for research.We reached at around 17 h and took some time to get accustomed to the beauty of the place. Many left for a boat ride and many waited at the dry riverbed for the sunset. Meanwhile, experienced people who had done these kind of observations (Kaushik Da, Biswajit Da) were busy setting the telescope and making sure that the mounts were in place and working properly. A telescope mount is a mechanical structure which supports a telescope. Telescope mounts are designed to support the mass of the telescope and allow for accurate pointing of the instrument. Our telescope had GEM (German Equatorial Mounts). The two axes of the GEM are known as Right Ascension (RA) and Declination (DEC). So, therefore some also call it RA-Dec mounts. When the mount is polar aligned, moving the telescope in RA is all thats necessary to track a celestial object. Movement in both axes will likely be required to place an object in the eyepiece of the telescope, but once found, movement in RA alone will keep the object in view.

Celestial Coordinate Systems

In astronomy, a celestial coordinate system is a system for specifying positions of celestial objects v.i.z satellites, planets, stars, galaxies etc. The two major systems we use are : Alt-Az & RA-Dec.

2.1

Altitude-Azimuth System

The horizontal, or altitude-azimuth, system is based on the position of the observer on Earth, which revolves around its own axis once per sidereal day (23 hours, 56 minutes) in relation to the xed star background. The positioning of a celestial object by the horizontal system varies with time, but is a useful coordinate system for locating and tracking objects for observers on earth. It is based on the position of stars relative to an observers ideal horizon.

2.2

RA-Dec System

To denote the positions of objects in the sky, astronomers use a system based on the celestial sphere. The use two measurements, right ascension and declination. Right ascension (abbreviated RA) is similar to longitude and is measured in hours, minutes and seconds eastward along the celestial equator. The

2 distance around the celestial equator is equal to 24 hours.The right ascension of the vernal equinox is 0h 0m 0s. Declination is similar to latitude and is measured in degrees, arcminutes and arcseconds, north or south of the celestial equator. Positive values for declination correspond to positions north of the equator, while negative values refer to positions south of the equator. Decination tells you how high overhead your object eventually will rise. An object at +48 degrees declination would pass directly over a point on the Earth at 48 degrees north latitude each night. The declination of the north celestial pole is 90...0....0 (for brevity, written as Degree.....Minute....Second ) and the south celestial poles declination is - 90....0....0 . Declination at the equator is 0....0....0

Observation Table

Given below is the analysis of the objects seen.

Additional Comments
Vega : After 23 h, the night sky was dominated by N NE part. The second brightest star of the northern hemisphere, Vega dominates the NE sky. It is around 25 light years (ly) from earth. Vega has been extensively studied by astronomers, leading it to be termed arguably the next most important star in the sky after the Sun Jupiter : At around 2 am in the morning, we saw Jupiter at about (15mm focal length & 42mm eyepiece). It has around 67 moons (natural satellites). We could clearly see three of them v.i.z Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. One characteristic feature of Jupiter are the belts which we saw at slightly higher magnication.

Acknowlegements

I would like to Dr. Shibaji Banerjee and Dr. Suparna Roychowdhury for accompanying us to Falta for this observation. It was an eventful 36 hours with lots of gossip, observation and good food.