On
Monday, an advanced 14" Cassegrain Schmidt Telescope was installed by The
Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Calcutta at its APC Road
campus. In order to help students to train for the observational part of
Astrophysics, this telescope will be helpful. Then, they can opt for this
subject during their research career. The purchase of this telescope and
related accessories were already sanctioned by the university under the DST
PURSE Program in 2011.
The telescope is quite advanced with its computerized equatorial mount system, Celestron Skyris 44SC Astronomical Camera and Optech SSP-3A UBVRI Photometer. This is the only telescope found in Kolkata and will be helpful for students to perform observations of astrophysical objects like the moon, stars, star clusters and even galaxies. The photometer will help in photometry of astronomical objects and measure the period of variable stars. The telescope was installed by Bipash Dasgupta, scientific officer, M P Birla Planetarium and M P Birla Institute of Fundamental Research and Arvind Paranpye, director, Nehru Planetarium, Mumbai. Two different models of 14" telescopes are available at St Xavier's College and the Kalyani University. According to Bipash, a 14" telescope was also installed at the Positional Astronomy Centre several years ago but this is an advanced version.
The areas covered under The Department of Applied Mathematics, are continuum, solid and quantum mechanics, general relativity, astrophysics, geophysics, plasma physics, dynamic system, stochastic process and others with a faculty of 12. For the telescope installed on Monday, Tanuka Chattopadhyay, professor will be the in charge. Even university vice chancellor Sugata Marjit, Pro-VC Swagata Sen and others were present at its inauguration.
The students can measure the diameter of various extended objects with the help of the CCD camera taking magnified snapshots of various objects. Using special software images can be saved and analyzed. This telescope is helpful, as using the photometer; we can measure the brightness of variable stars and track their movement. With, spectroscopes, studies can be carried out. MSc students can perform dissertation using this telescope so they have some knowledge of observational astrophysics. Even advanced workshops can be arranged with this.
Through this telescope, professor also plans to get batches of school children to watch special events. Students can be encouraged to get a better understanding of outer space and encourage them to take up studies in Observational Astrophysics in the future.