Small Aperture Amateur Observational Capabilities/Tools (Imaging/Photometry/Spectroscopy)

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1 Small Aperture Amateur Observational Capabilities/Tools (Imaging/Photometry/Spectroscopy) Over several thousand years, astronomy continues to be popular subject among amateurs. Day by day, advancements in equipment and reduction in cost has enabled amateur astronomer s work to become increasingly more scientific rather than conducting only imaging. With increasing interest and low cost capabilities in imaging/ photometry/spectroscopy, amateurs are doing appreciable work on it with their limited tool capabilities. The work may not be completely on par with that of professionals but it enables amateur astronomers to understand the subject more scientifically. In this paper, we briefly describe some of the small aperture amateur observational capabilities and tools. Introduction: There is enough scope to carry out astronomical observations using moderate size telescopes, mainly known as Refractors, Reflectors and Cassegrain Catadioptric Telescopes along with capabilities of CCD imaging and sky tracking facility. A brief description about these telescopes and the used facilities are as follows. Refractor Telescope: Refractor telescope consists of convex lenses to collect, focus and magnify light. The distance between the objective (main) lens and the eyepiece lens is fixed so that they share a common focal point (Fig. 1). Volume -5, Issue-2, April 2015 Figure 2. Reflector Telescope Schmidt- Cassegrain Catadioptric Telescope: The third type of telescope, which has gained immense popularity over the last years, is the Schmidt Cassegrain telescope (SCT). This type of telescope uses both lenses and mirrors in a compound system as shown in Fig. 3. Figure 3. Schmidt- Cassegrain Telescope Sky tracking facilities: The facility includes telescopes that are generally attached with GOTO mounts and are slewed using planetarium software (For eg. Starry Night pro plus SN7/MaximDL + EQMOD in our case). CCD Imaging: The thermoelectric cooled Charge Coupled Device (CCD) cameras are more sensitive to astronomical light signals due to less dark electric current and high electron quantum efficiency (QE). A typical view of CCD sensor is shown in Fig. 4. Figure 1. Refractor Telescope Reflecting Telescope: Reflecting Telescope uses a single concave mirror as its primary. Light enters the tube traveling to the mirror at the back end. There light bend forward in the tube to a single point, its focal point. This exact system is known as Newtonian Reflector. Figure 4. A typical CCD sensor (KAF8300, Kodak) The quantum efficiency of a typical CCD chip w.r.t optical wavelength is shown in (Fig. 5)

2 Figure 5: Typical QE curve of KAF8300 CCD Chip MaximDL: Image calibration/stacking & Photometry APT Tool/Backyard (EOS): Image capturing CCDstack2.0: Image calibration/stacking RSpec: Spectroscopy Astrometrica: Plate scale DS9: Image scaling/false color Figure 6b. Comet C2013R1 Lovejoy Imaging/ Observations: The image calibration & processing is an integral part of astronomical observation and result estimations. Many of the amateur astronomical communities use popular imaging softwares for different purposes, mentioned below. MaximDL: Image calibration/stacking & Photometry APT Tool/Backyard (EOS):CCD Camera control CCDstack2.0: Image calibration/stacking RSpec: Spectroscopy Few CCD images of Comets (year ) C2012S1 ISON, C2013R1 Lovejoy, C/2014Q2 Lovejoy, C/2013A1 Siding Spring, C/2014 E2 Jacques, C/2013V5 Oukaimeden along with supernova SN2014J event in galaxy M82 and recent supernova SN2014dt in galaxy M61 are shown in Fig. 6(a-h). Figure 6c. C2013A1 Siding Spring Figure 6a. Comet C2012S1 ISON Figure 6d. C2014Q2 Lovejoy 23

3 Figure 6e. C/2013 V5 Oukaimeden Figure 6h. SN2014dt in M61 Spectroscopy and Photometry Astronomical Spectroscopy: Spectroscopy is a branch of Physics/Chemistry in which, the emission and absorption property of atoms or molecules are examined. It can be done in Optical, Radio and X-Ray regions of the electromagnetic radiation. Mostly, in amateur astronomical spectroscopy the measurements are done in optical region at different wavelengths from 4000 Å to 7000 Å. The electromagnetic radiation (here visible light signal) is dispersed over the CCD sensor using a dispersive medium (say prism or star analyser gratings) and spectrum is recorded as an image. Figure 6f. C2014E2 Jacques The image data is reduced using spectroscopy software like RSpec, Vspec or ISIS to get relative intensity (y axis) and wavelength (x axis) distribution. Low dispersion transmission blazed gratings of 100 lines/mm grooves or 200 lines/ mm grooves are popular among amateur astronomers. These gratings best work with bright stars, but can also be used to examine the spectra of comets and supernovas. The typical spectrum of Star Vega (A0V) is shown along with few spectra of comets and supernovas. The Hydrogen Balmer lines are clearly seen in spectrum of star Vega (A0V). Likewise many bright stars and their spectral classes can be easily examined. Figure 6g. SN2014J in M82 24

4 Figure 7. Spectrum of star Vega (A0V). X-axis: Wavelength (A o );Y-axis: Relative flux. Not only bright stars, the bright comets are also good target for amateur astronomers to perform spectroscopy. The spectra of comets show emission peaks of diatomic carbon C2 swan bands, carbide C3, cyanide CN & Ammonia NH 3 when comet approaches very near to the Sun. Figure 10. Carbon Swan bands of Comet C2014Q2 Lovejoy It is challenging to carry out astronomical spectroscopy at higher positive photometric magnitude (for very faint objects), but careful observation does not disappoint as far as results are concerned. The small telescopes are sufficient to record the spectrum of bright supernova transients. The spectrum of supernovas SN2014J and SN2014dt are recorded though. It is always challenging to identify the correct emission / absorption lines in spectral analysis, although the absorption at 6000 Å is best known as Silicon-II (Si-II) in Type Ia supernova among astronomical community. The Si-II absorption line at 6000 Å was found blue shifted (Si-II shows rest wavelength at 6355 Å) as after the supernova explosion the relative cooled nova shell moving very fast towards the observer at earth. Figure 8. Carbon Swan bands of comet C2012S1 ISON Likewise to sound signals where frequency of sound appears higher when source moves towards listener and vice versa, same thing happens with electromagnetic radiations. This phenomenon is well known as Doppler effect. The close observation shows that within a month Si-II line was shifted and found at 6114 Å. Figure 9. Carbon Swan bands of Comet C2014E2 Jacques Figure 11. Spectra of SN2014J captured during the first 30 days after detection. The Si feature identifies it as a Type Ia The simple calculation shows that supernova shell was expanding with velocity of km/seconds. 25

5 Expansion Velocity V c = [(λ obs λ rest ) x velocity of light in vacuum (km/s)]/ λ rest Expansion Velocity V c = [( ) x 3^10 5 ] / 6355 = km/s Figure 12. Expansion velocity profile with time (days) The similar spectroscopic study is done for SN2014dt in M61 (Fig. 13). Figure 14. Photometric magnitude estimation of SN2014dt Conclusion: Advancements in equipments in astronomy have given new wings to amateur astronomers. Imaging coupled with spectroscopic/photometric data helps in understanding and exploring the universe more scientifically. Presence of molecules in comets, type of supernova (estimation of Doppler shifts, radial expansion velocities), its magnitude, size, the variability in luminosities of binary stars (period and mass) etc can easily be estimated with the spectrum / photometric data. Malhar Raghunath Kendurkar Kota, India malhar.kendurkar@gmail.com Contact: +91-(0) Figure 13. Spectra of SN2014dt. The Si feature identifies it as a Type Ia A. Chapman Buenos Aires, Argentina andresechapman@gmail.com Contact: Astronomical Photometry: It is measuring the electromagnetic flux (luminosity or magnitude) of an unknown astronomical object with respect to standard source. The Photometric magnitude estimation of a typical supernova SN2014dt (Fig. 14). M. Bunnell Price, Utah, USA mrkbunnell@gmail.com Contact: Cepheids Astronomy Group 26 26

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