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Orion nebula A pair of Interacting galaxies

Chapter III
Astronomical instruments and
Observational techniques

Prof. Dr. Dinh Van Trung

Institute of Physics
Vietnamese Academy of Science and Technology

Mauna Kea, Big Island, Hawaii (altitude = 4200 m) You can not touch or do experiments with
astronomical objects.
….. They must be observed remotely !!!

We use our naked eyes or telescopes (many

kinds) to observe the sky and study celestial
objects.

Information is carried by EM waves, cosmic

rays, neutrinos …

Electromagnetic waves

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Observing through the Earth’s atmosphere

The Earth atmosphere absorbs strongly in many parts of

the spectrum. Only the visible, part of near IR and radio
regions are accessible from the ground. Astronomical observations have been conducted from the
ground, airplanes, balloons, rockets and more frequently
from space observatories.

Atmospheric Extinction Atmospheric Turbulence

Astronomical observatories are usually located at remote,

From space telescope From the ground high sites such as Mauna Kea (Hawaii), Northern Chile,
La Palma (Canary Islands).

Why ?
….. Because high sites have
dry conditions, few number
of cloudy nights,
good seeing.
And of course, no light
pollution from cities or
towns.

Mount Wilson, CA, between 1908 and 1988.

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Objective: Lens or Mirror

Telescopes

Telescopes fulfill three major tasks:

- Collecting light from a large area

to study faint sources
- Improving the angular resolution
to study small objects
- Measuring positions of objects

D: Diameter of objective or Aperture.

Objective lens + Eye piece
f: focal length.

f/D = F or the aperture ratio.

F ~ 1: fast telescope as more light is collected per unit

area on the focal plane.
F ~ 10 or more: slow telescope.

Object with angular size u will form an image through

the telescope on the focal plane with linear size s:

s = f.tan u ~ fu

Thin lens formula Performance of telescope

1 1 1 • Light gathering power ~ (Diameter)2

+ = • f/D ratio (image brightness ~ [D/f]2)
d d' f • Magnification
• Field of View (decreases as magnification increases)
If object is located at infinity, d = ∞ --->> d’ = f • Angular resolution (defined by diffraction). Bigger
telescope has better angular resolution. However, for
Magnification of the combination objective + eye piece ground-based telescopes, seeing effect dominates
over diffraction.

! = u'/ u = f / f '

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Seeing effect dominates for Diameter > 20 cm

Low magnification Excessive magnification

Star Betelgeuse The moon

High magnification

Optical Aberrations
Comma
Chromatic aberration

Astigmatism

Spherical aberration

Common telescope types

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Catadioptric telescope = mirrors + lens Telescope mounts

Primary & secondary mirrors
Schmidt corrector

Equatorial mount Azimuthal mount

Angular resolution of Telescope Rayleigh criterion or definition:

Angular resolving power = size of the central maximum

Diffraction spreads light waves Diffraction pattern

going through an aperture.

Size of central maximum

!
!! = 1.22
D

Binary star barely resolved, just resolved and unresolved.

Detectors Photography
Human eye
Advantages over human eye:
Resolution ~ 2 arc-minutes • Provide permanent records
Largest aperture ~ 6 mm • Permit long exposure time
(in dark condition) • Sensitive to large range of
Dynamic range ~ 1 million
wavelength.
(in dark condition)
However, photographic plates are
Integration time ~ 0.2 s insensitive and difficult to
calibrate accurately.
Photography has been
superseded by electronic E. Hubble adjusting camera at
equipment the Newton focus

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Photomultiplier tube (PMT) PMTs are mainly used in photometer to

measure accurately light intensity

PMT is highly sensitive

Photoelectric effect: hν > W and could detect single
photon

Electronic imaging: Charge Coupled Device CCD Real operation of CCD

Real CCD

Advantages of CCD

• Very high sensitivity (QE > 80%)

• Highly linear, allowing easy and accurate
calibration
• Produce directly digitized images
• Large format (4000 x 4000 pixels per CCD chip)

Problems: Dark current produces noise. Scientific

CCD needs to be cooled to -100o C or even more to
liquid Nitrogen 77 K.

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Real Scientific CCD camera: Mosaic of CCDs Making color pictures:

combine individual
images taken through
RGB filters.

CMOS = Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor

Camera using either CCD or CMOS detector

Spectroscopy

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Radio Astronomy instrumentation

Angular resolution of radio telescope
Arecibo
radiotelescope To obtain angular
resolution of 1”, a
radiotelescope operating
at =1 cm would be 2 km
in diameter !!!

Usually radiotelescopes
are very big (up to 100 m
Frequency range 100 MHz to 600 GHz or Wavelength in diamter).
from 0.5 mm to 3 m.

Radio-interferometers are used for high Some radio interferometers

angular resolution

Antennas are combined to give an equivalent aperture Very Large Array

of diameter d, which could be km to thousands of km. (New Mexico)
VLBI

Galaxy Centaurus A
hosting a very strong
radio jet. Image is a
combination of optical
and radio interferometer
observations.

Radio jet is produced by

the supermassive black
hole located at the very
center of Cen A.

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