ASTRONOMY

Sci 14

ASTRONOMICAL
INSTRUMENTS
Sci14-05
Prepared by:

Engr. CARMELITA B. PACIS

Instructor
First Semester SY 2020-2021
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OUTLINE
TELESCOPES OBSERVATIONS OUTSIDE
Systems for Measuring Radiation EARTH’S ATMOSPHERE
History Atmospheric Interference
How Telescopes Work Airborne and Space Telescopes
Types of Telescope THE FUTURE OF LARGE TELESCOPES
Focus Arrangements James Webb Space Telescope Video
TELESCOPES TODAY Large Synoptic Survey Telescope
Telescopes Then and Now Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA)
Modern Visible-Light European Extremely Large
and Infrared Telescopes Telescope (E-ELT)
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MVLIT Videos REFERENCE
Radio Telescopes Radar Telescope
TELESCOPES
Systems for Measuring Radiation
Basic components for measuring radiation from
astronomical sources
1. Telescope – instrument that collects visible
light or other electromagnetic radiation
2. Wavelength sorting device - attached to the
telescope that sorts the incoming radiation by
wavelength
3. Detector - a device that senses the radiation
in the wavelength regions selected and
permanently records the observation
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Systems for Measuring Radiation
Orion Region at Different Wavelengths

(a) Visible light

- Shows part of the Orion region
as the human eye sees it
- Dotted lines added to show
the figure of the mythical
hunter, Orion
Systems for Measuring Radiation
. Orion Region at Different Wavelengths

(b) X-rays
- Emphasizes the point-like X-ray
sources nearby
- The colors are artificial,
changing from yellow to white
to blue with increasing energy
of the X-rays.
- The bright, hot stars in Orion
are still seen in this image, but
so are many other objects
located at very different
distances, including other stars,
star corpses, and galaxies at the
edge of the observable universe
Systems for Measuring Radiation
. Orion Region at Different Wavelengths

(c) Infrared radiation

- Mainly seen is the glowing
dust in this region

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 History of Telescopes
• Ancient
observatories were
built by many
cultures for
observing the sky Machu Picchu is a 15th century
Incan site located in Peru
• Functions of these
observatories:
– Track time and date
– Religious rituals
Stonehenge, a prehistoric site (3000–
2000 BCE), is located in England 9
 History of Telescopes
• Galileo Galilei – in 1610, developed the first
telescope, a simple tube with lenses which he
called ‘spyglass’, to observe the sky and gather
more light than his eyes alone could
• In 1608, these three were credited with the
invention of the telescope, who applied for
patents within weeks of each other
– Hans Lippershey
– Zaccharias Janssen
– Jacob Metius

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 How Telescopes Work
Functions of a telescope:
1. To collect the faint light
The amount of light a
from an astronomical
telescope can collect
source
increases with the
2. To focus all the light into size of the aperture
a point or an image (diameter of the
primary lens or
mirror of a telescope)

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 How Telescopes Work
A telescope with a mirror that is 4 meters in
diameter can collect 16 times as much light as
a telescope that is 1 meter in diameter.

How to compute:
Area of 1-meter diameter telescope = D2/4 =
3.14(1)2/4 = 0.79m2
Area of 4-meter diameter telescope =
12.3.14(4)2/4 = 12.6m2
Ratio of 4-m to 1-m diameter telescope :
12.6m2/0.79m2 = 16
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 How Telescopes Work
How An Image is Formed By a Lens or a Mirror
• We see the world though lenses which are the
key elements of our eyes
• Lens - a transparent piece of material that
bends the rays of light passing through it
• Light rays that pass through the lens are parallel
but with the right curvature, they converge
toward a point called focus to form an image.
• Focal length - the distance from the lens to the
location where the light rays focus, or image,
behind the lens 13
 How Telescopes Work
How An Image is Formed By a Lens or a Mirror
Curved lens
surfaces

Parallel Refracted
light rays light rays

Parallel rays from a distant source are bent by the convex lens so that
they all come together in a single place (the focus) to form an image.
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 How Telescopes Work
How An Image is Formed By a Lens or a Mirror
• Eyepiece – magnifying lens used to view the
image produced by the objective lens or
primary mirror of a telescope
– Focuses the image at a distance that is either
directly viewable by a human or at a convenient
place for a detector
– Different eyepieces change the magnification (or
size) of the image and also redirect the light to a
more accessible location
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 Types of Telescope
(1) Refracting Telescope
• Refracting telescope - telescope
in which the principal light
collector is a lens or system of
lenses
• Galileo’s telescopes were
refractors, as are today’s
binoculars and field glasses
• Disadvantages:
- Lens glass must be perfect, without
Eyepiece
flaws and bubbles since it will
cause distortion (chromatic
aberration)
- Large lens could sag due to gravity
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 Types of Telescope
(2) Reflecting Telescope Reflecting telescope - telescope in
which the principal light collector is
a concave mirror
Only the front surface has to be
manufactured to a precise shape,
and the mirror can be supported
from the back
Most astronomical telescopes today
(both amateur and professional) are
Eyepiece
reflecting telescopes
The first successful reflecting
telescope was built by Isaac Newton
in 1668
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 Focus Arrangements for
Reflecting Telescope
(1) Prime Focus
• Light is detected where
it comes to a focus
after reflecting from
the primary mirror
• The observer/camera
is at the focal point x.

• In the past, in very large telescopes, an observer would sit

inside the telescope in an "observing cage" to directly view
the image or operate a camera
• Now, remote-controlled cameras are used for remote
operation of the telescope from almost anywhere in the world
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 Focus Arrangements for
Reflecting Telescope
• It usually has a
(2) Newtonian Focus
paraboloid primary
mirror.
• Light is reflected by a
small secondary mirror
off to one side, where it
can be detected

• It is one of the simplest and least expensive designs for a

given size of primary, and is popular with amateur
telescope makers as a home-build project.
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 Focus Arrangements for
Reflecting Telescope
(3) Cassegrain Focus
• First published in a 1672 design attributed
to Laurent Cassegrain
• It has a parabolic primary mirror, and a
hyperbolic secondary mirror that reflects
the light back down through a hole in the
primary.
• The folding and diverging effect of the
secondary mirror creates a telescope with a
long focal length while having a short tube
length.

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TELESCOPES TODAY
 Telescopes Then and Now
• In Newton’s time, sizes of the mirrors in
telescopes were measured in inches
• In 1948, US astronomers built a telescope with
a 5-meter (200-inch) diameter mirror on
Palomar Mountain in Southern California.
– It remained the largest visible-light telescope in the
world for several decades
• Today, telescopes have primary mirrors (the
largest mirrors in the telescope) that are 8- to
10-meters in diameter, and larger ones are
being built

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 Telescopes Then and Now

Large Telescope Mirror. This image shows one of the primary mirrors of the
European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope, named Yepun, just after
it was recoated with aluminum. The mirror is a little over 8 meters in diameter
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 Modern Visible-Light and Infrared
Telescopes
• Telescope building grew at an unprecedented
rate in decades starting in 1990
• Technology has become so advanced that
made it possible to build telescopes much
larger than the 5-meter telescope at Palomar at
a reasonable cost.
• New technologies have also been designed to
work well in the infrared (invisible to the
human eye), and not just visible, wavelengths
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 Modern Visible-Light and Infrared
Telescopes
Large Single-Dish Visible-Light and Infrared Telescopes
Aperture Telescope Name Location Status Website
(m)
39 European Cerro Armazonas, First light 2025 https://www.e
Extremely Large Chile (estimated) so.org/sci/facil
Telescope (EELT) ities/eelt/
30 Thirty-Meter Mauna Kea, HI First light 2025 https://www.t
Telescope (TMT) (estimated) mt.org/
24.5 Giant Magellan Las Campanas First light 2025 https://www.g
Telescope (GMT) Observatory, Chile (estimated) mto.org/
11.1 × 9.9 Southern African Sutherland, South 2005 https://www.s
Large Telescope Africa alt.ac.za/
(SALT)
10.4 Gran Telescopio La Palma, Canary First light 2007 http://www.gt
Canarias (GTC) Islands c.iac.es/ 25
 Modern Visible-Light and Infrared
Telescopes
Large Single-Dish Visible-Light and Infrared Telescopes
Aperture Telescope Name Location Status Website
(m)
10.0 Keck I and II (two Mauna Kea, HI Completed https://keckobse
telescopes) 1993–96 rvatory.org/
9.1 Hobby–Eberly Mount Locke, TX Completed https://mcdonal
Telescope (HET) 1997 d.utexas.edu/
8.4 Large Binocular Mount Graham, First light https://www.lbt
Telescope (LBT) AZ 2004 o.org/
(two telescopes)
8.4 Large Synoptic The Cerro Pachón, First light https://www.lsst
Survey Telescope Chile 2021 .org/
(LSST)
8.3 Subaru Mauna Kea, HI First light https://www.na
Telescope 1998 oj.org/jp/ 26
 Modern Visible-Light and Infrared
Telescopes
Large Single-Dish Visible-Light and Infrared Telescopes
Aperture Telescope Location Status Website
(m) Name
8.2 Very Large Cerro Paranal, All 4 telescopes https://www.es
Telescope (VLT) Chile completed 2000 o.org/public/
8.1 Gemini North Mauna Kea, First light 1999 http://www.gem
and Gemini HI (North) and (North), First light ini.edu/
South Cerro Pachón, 2000 (South)
Chile (South)
6.5 Magellan Las First light 2000 https://obs.carn
Telescopes (two Campanas, and 2002 egiescience.edu
telescopes: Chile /Magellan
Baade and
Landon Clay)
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 Modern Visible-Light and Infrared
Telescopes
Large Single-Dish Visible-Light and Infrared Telescopes
Aperture Telescope Location Status Website
(m) Name
6.5 Multi-Mirror Mount Completed 1979 http://www.mm
Telescope Hopkins, AZ to.org/
(MMT)
6.0 Big Telescope Mount Completed 1976 http://w0.sao.ru
Altazimuth Pastukhov, /Doc-
(BTA-6) Russia en/Telescopes/b
ta/descrip.html
5.1 Hale Telescope Mount Completed 1948 https://sites.astr
Palomar, CA o.caltech.edu/p
alomar/about/te
lescopes/hale.ht
ml
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Modern Visible-Light and Infrared
Telescopes - Videos
Large Single-Dish Visible-Light and Infrared Telescopes

https://youtu.be/K7padkb0-n8 https://youtu.be/nV51SYDzTVs

Gran Telescopio Hale Telescope

Canarias (GTC) 29
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 Radio Telescopes
• Aside from visible and infrared radiation, radio
waves from astronomical objects can also be
detected from the surface of Earth.
• In the early 1930’s, Karl G. Jansky, an engineer
at Bell Telephone Laboratories, discovered the
first source of cosmic radio waves.
• In 1936, Grote Reber, an amateur astronomer,
built the first antenna specifically designed to
receive cosmic radio waves
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 Radio Telescopes
Major Radio Observatories of the World
Observatory Location Description Website
Individual Radio Dishes
Arecibo Observatory Arecibo, 305-m fixed dish http://www.naic.edu/
Puerto Rico
Green Bank Telescope Green Bank, 110 × 100-m https://science.nrao.e
(GBT) WV steerable dish du/facilities/gbt
Effelsberg 100-m Bonn, 100-m steerable https://www.mpifr-
Telescope Germany dish bonn.mpg.de/en/effel
sberg
Lovell Telescope Manchester, 76-m steerable http://www.jb.man.ac
England dish .uk/aboutus/lovell/
Canberra Deep Space Tidbinbilla, 70-m steerable https://www.cdscc.na
Communication Australia dish sa.gov/
Complex (CDSCC) 31
 Radio Telescopes
Major Radio Observatories of the World
Observatory Location Description Website
Individual Radio Dishes
Arecibo Observatory Arecibo, 305-m fixed dish http://www.naic.edu/
Puerto Rico
Green Bank Telescope Green Bank, 110 × 100-m https://science.nrao.e
(GBT) WV steerable dish du/facilities/gbt
Effelsberg 100-m Bonn, 100-m steerable https://www.mpifr-
Telescope Germany dish bonn.mpg.de/en/effel
sberg
Lovell Telescope Manchester, 76-m steerable http://www.jb.man.ac
England dish .uk/aboutus/lovell/
Canberra Deep Space Tidbinbilla, 70-m steerable https://www.cdscc.na
Communication Australia dish sa.gov/
Complex (CDSCC) 32
 Radio Telescopes
Major Radio Observatories of the World
Observatory Location Description Website
Individual Radio Dishes
Goldstone Deep Space Barstow, CA 70-m steerable https://www.gdscc.na
Communications dish sa.gov/
Complex (GDSCC)
Parkes Observatory Parkes, 64-m steerable https://www.parkes.at
Australia dish nf.csiro.au/

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 Radio Telescopes
Major Radio Observatories of the World
Observatory Location Description Website
Arrays of Radio Dishes
Square Kilometre South Africa and Thousands of dishes, https://www.sk
Array (SKA) Western km2 collecting area, atelescope.org/
Australia partial array in 2020
Atacama Large Atacama desert, 66 7-m and 12-m https://www.al
Millimeter/ Northern Chile dishes maobservatory.
submillimeter Array org/en/home/
(ALMA)
Very Large Array Socorro, New 27-element array of https://science.
(VLA) Mexico 25-m dishes (36-km nrao.edu/faciliti
baseline) es/vla
Westerbork Synthesis Westerbork, the 12-element array of https://www.as
Radio Telescope Netherlands 25-m dishes (1.6-km tron.nl/telescop
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(WSRT) baseline) es/wsrt-apertif/
 Radio Telescopes
Major Radio Observatories of the World
Observatory Location Description Website
Arrays of Radio Dishes
Very Long Baseline Ten US sites, HI 10-element array of https://science.
Array (VLBA) to the Virgin 25-m dishes (9000 km nrao.edu/faciliti
Islands baseline) es/vlba
Australia Telescope Several sites in 8-element array (seven https://www.na
Compact Array Australia 22-m dishes plus rrabri.atnf.csiro.
(ATCA) Parkes 64 m) au/
Multi-Element Radio Cambridge, Network of seven http://www.e-
Linked England, and dishes (the largest is 32 merlin.ac.uk/
Interferometer other British m)
Network (MERLIN) sites

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 Radio Telescopes
Major Radio Observatories of the World
Observatory Location Description Website
Millimeter-wave Telescopes
IRAM Granada, 30-m steerable https://www.iram-institute.org/
Spain mmwave dish
James Clerk Mauna Kea, 15-m steerable https://www.eaobservatory.org
Maxwell HI mmwave dish /jcmt/
Telescope (JCMT)
Nobeyama Radio Minamimaki 6-element https://www.nro.nao.ac.jp/en/
Observatory , Japan array of 10-m
(NRO) wave dishes
Hat Creek Radio Cassel, CA 6-element https://archive.sri.com/research
Observatory array of 5-m -development/specialized-
(HCRO) wave dishes facilities/hat-creek-radio-
observatory
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 Radio Telescopes

Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA). Located in the

Atacama Desert of Northern Chile, ALMA currently provides the highest
resolution for radio observations.
Very Long Baseline Array. This map
shows the distribution of 10
antennas that constitute an array
of radio telescopes stretching
across the United States and its
territories
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 Radar Telescope
Radar is the technique of transmitting radio waves to
an object in our solar system and then detecting the
radio radiation that the object reflects back.
Radar observations have been used to determine the
distances to planets and how fast things are moving
in the solar system
Any radio dish can be used as a radar telescope if it is
equipped with a powerful transmitter and a
receiver
The Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico has the largest
radio and radar dish
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 Radar Telescope

Largest Radio and Radar Dish. The Arecibo Observatory, with its 1000-foot radio dish-
filling valley in Puerto Rico, is part of the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center,
operated by SRI International, USRA, and UMET under a cooperative agreement with
the National Science Foundation. Back to Outline Proceed
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OBSERVATIONS OUTSIDE
EARTH’S ATMOSPHERE
 Atmospheric Interference
Earth’s atmosphere blocks most radiation at
wavelengths shorter than visible light

Direct observations of ultraviolet, X-ray, and

gamma ray can only be made from space

Astronomers continue to build telescopes for

use both on the ground and for launching
into space.

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 Airborne and Space Telescopes
• Infrared observations from airplanes have
been made since the 1960s
• From 1974 through 1995, NASA operated a 0.9-
meter airborne telescope flying regularly out of
the Ames Research Center south of San
Francisco
• More recently, NASA (in partnership with the
German Aerospace Center) has constructed a
much larger 2.5-meter telescope, called the
Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared
Astronomy (SOFIA), which flies in a modified
Boeing 747SP
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Airborne and Space Telescopes

Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy

(SOFIA) allows observations to be made above most of
Earth’s atmospheric water vapor
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 Airborne and Space Telescopes
• Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS)
– The first orbiting infrared observatory launched
in 1983, a joint project by the United States, the
Netherlands, and Britain.
• Spitzer Space Telescope
– A 0.85-meter space telescope considered to be
the most powerful infrared telescope, launched
in 2003

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 Airborne and Space Telescopes
Infrared Images from Observations from the Spitzer Space
Telescope (SST)

Flame nebula
Cassiopeia A

Helix nebula 45
 Airborne and Space Telescopes
• Hubble Space Telescope (HST)
– Launched in April 1990
– The largest telescope put into space, with an n
aperture of 2.4 meters
– Named for Edwin Hubble, the astronomer who
discovered the expansion of the universe in the
1920s
– The first orbiting observatory designed to be
serviced by Shuttle astronauts
– Produced the most detailed images of astronomical
objects from the solar system outward to the most
distant galaxies
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Airborne and Space Telescopes
Hubble Space Telescope Images

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 Airborne and Space Telescopes
• Chandra X-ray Satellite
– Launched in space in 1999
– World’s most powerful X-ray telescope
– Producing X-ray images with unprecedented
resolution and sensitivity

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 Airborne and Space Telescopes
Recent Observatories in Space
Observatory Date Bands of Notes Website
Operation the
Began Spectrum
Hubble Space Telescope 1990 visible, UV, 2.4-m mirror; https://hubblesi
(HST) IR images and te.org/
spectra
Chandra X-Ray 1999 X-rays X-ray images https://www.ch
Observatory and spectra andra.si.edu/
XMM-Newton 1999 X-rays X-ray https://www.cos
spectroscopy mos.esa.int/web
/xmm-newton
International Gamma- 2002 X- and higher https://sci.esa.in
Ray Astrophysics gamma ray resolution t/web/integral/
Laboratory (INTEGRAL) gamma-ray
images
Spitzer Space Telescope 2003 IR 0.85-m http://www.spit
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telescope zer.caltech.edu/
 Airborne and Space Telescopes
Recent Observatories in Space
Observatory Date Bands of Notes Website
Operation the
Began Spectrum
Fermi Gamma- 2008 Gamma first high-energy https://fermi.gsfc.nas
ray Space rays gamma-ray a.gov/
Telescope observations
Kepler 2009 Visible planet finder https://www.nasa.go
light v/mission_pages/kepl
er/main/index.html
Wide-field 2009 IR whole-sky map, https://www.nasa.go
Infrared Survey asteroid v/mission_pages/WIS
Explorer (WISE) searches E/main/index.html
Gaia 2013 Visible Precise map of https://sci.esa.int/we
light the Milky Way b/gaia/
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THE FUTURE OF LARGE
TELESCOPES
 James Webb Space Telescope
• Named after one of the early administrators of
NASA instead of a scientist
• This telescope will have a mirror 6 meters in
diameter, made up, like the Keck telescopes, of 36
small hexagons.
• It will be launched 1.5M kilometers from Earth and
will unfold into [place once it reaches a stable orbit
• It should have the sensitivity needed to detect the
very first generation of stars, formed when the
universe was only a few hundred million years old
• Scheduled to be launched on 30 March 2021
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James Webb Space Telescope

James Webb Space Telescope Deployment

Target Date: March 2021
https://youtu.be/bTxLAGchWnA

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 Large Synoptic Survey Telescope
• The LSST is an an 8.4-meter telescope with a significantly
larger field of view than any existing telescopes
• It began construction in August 2014 and expected to see
first light in 2021.
• The observatory is
located at Northern Chile
• It will rapidly scan the sky
to find transients, Vera C. Rubin Observatory
changing phenomena, LSST Camera
such as exploding stars
and chunks of rock that
orbit near Earth. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qc_is
cV1uA0&feature=youtu.be
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Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA)
• Consist of two arrays of
telescopes, one in each
hemisphere
(northern/southern),
which will indirectly
measure gamma rays
from the ground
• It will measure gamma-
ray energies a thousand
times as great as the https://youtu.be/tZx--MqstMo
Fermi telescope can
detect.
• Network should start
taking data in 2022
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European Extremely Large Telescope
(E-ELT)
• The design of the E-ELT calls for
a 39.3-meter primary mirror,
made up of 798 hexagonal
mirrors, each 1.4 meters in
diameter and all held precisely
in position so that they form a
continuous surface.
• Construction on the site in the
Atacama Desert in Northern
Chile started in 2014, first light
in 2025
• It will provide images and
spectra of planets and that Artist’s Conception of the E-ELT
could perhaps, give first real
evidence (from the chemistry
of these planets’ atmospheres)
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that life exists elsewhere Back to Outline Proceed
 REFERENCE TEXTBOOK
• OpenStax, Astronomy. OpenStax. 13 October
2016.
• Download for free at
http://cnx.org/content/col11992/latest/
• https://unglueit-
files.s3.amazonaws.com/ebf/9947599e9eee
4842887fde386c3bbac6.pdf
• Introduction to Astronomy and Cosmology
by Ian Morison
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 REFERENCE LINKS
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflecting_telesc
ope#Prime_focus
• https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/
multimedia/index.html
• https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Spac
e_Science/New_launch_date_for_James_Webb
_Space_Telescope#:~:text=After%20completion
%20of%20an%20independent%20review%2C%
20a%20new,it%20to%20life%20is%20a%20long
%2C%20meticulous%20process.
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 REFERENCE LINKS
• https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/about/launch
.html

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