Scientific Capabilities and Advantages of the 3.6 Meter Optical Telescope at Devasthal, Uttarakhand

Omar, Amitesh; Kumar, Brijesh; Maheswar, G.; Sagar, Ram

doi:10.18520/cs/v113/i04/682-685

Cited by 19 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…The DOT has an internal auto-guider to improve tracking accuracy and a wave-front sensor to align the telescope optics. The 3.6-m DOT is suitable to carry out astronomical observations in many areas of Galactic and extra-galactic astronomy for observations of star clusters, young stars, supernova and gamma-ray bursts, variability of stars, galaxies, high redshift sources, and active galactic nuclei 9 . Most of these studies require imaging capabilities over several arc-minutes of Field of View (FoV) and spectroscopic capabilities over the visible waveband with spectral resolving power (λ/Δλ) in the range of 100-2000.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

First-Light Images from Low-Dispersion Spectrograph-Cum-Imager on 3.6m Devasthal Optical Telescope

Omar¹,

Kumar²,

Reddy³

et al. 2019

Current Science

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A low dispersion spectrograph-cum-imager has been developed and assembled in ARIES, Nainital. The optical design of the spectrograph consists of a collimator and a focal reducer converting the f/9 beam from the 3.6-m Devasthal optical telescope to a nearly f/4.3 beam. The instrument is capable of carrying out broad-band imaging, narrow-band imaging and low-resolution (λ/Δλ<2000) slit spectroscopy in the wavelength range 350-1050 nm. A closed-cycle cryogenically cooled charge-coupled device camera, also assembled in ARIES, is used as the main imaging device for the spectrograph. The first images from the spectrograph on the telescope assert seeing-limited performance free from any significant optical aberration. An i-band image of the galaxy cluster Abell 370 made using the spectrograph shows faint sources down to ~25 mag. The quality and sensitivity of the optical spectrums of the celestial sources obtained from the spectrograph are as per the expectations from a 3.6-m telescope. Several new modes of observations such as polarimetry, fast-imaging, and monitoring of the atmospheric parameters are being included in the spectrograph. Using a test setup, single optical pulses from the Crab pulsar were detected from the telescope. The spectrograph is one of the main back-end instruments on the 3.6-m telescope for high sensitivity observations of celestial objects.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

First-Light Images from Low-Dispersion Spectrograph-Cum-Imager on 3.6m Devasthal Optical Telescope

Omar¹,

Kumar²,

Reddy³

et al. 2019

Current Science

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“…The recent on sky tests carried out with the 3.6-m DOT reveal that the optics of the telecope is excellent and capable of providing images of the celestial bodies with sub arc second resolutions. The best recorded value of angular resolution is 0.4 arc second (Omar et al 2017;Sagar 2017). CCD images of a star cluster taken with the 3.6-m DOT indicate that stars fainter than 24 mag in B band are detected during an exposure time of 30 minutes which is ∼ 4 mag fainter than the detection limit of the 104 cm Sampurnanand telescope of ARIES located at Manora Peak, Nainital.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The 4-meter class modern observing facilities located at Devasthal have advantage of their geographical location for providing optical and NIR observations of not only transients objects like GRB afterglows and Supernovae but also of astrophysically significant γ-ray, X-ray, UV and radio sources observed with Indian and other observatories operating at these wavelengths. The observing facilities located at Devasthal may become of global importance when modern high resolution spectrographs equipped with most sensitive CCD detectors are mounted on the 3.6-m DOT (Sagar 2017;Omar et al 2017). The BINA and other similar international research networks can boost the scientific output coming from these observing facilities.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In order to exploit the full potential of the successfully installed 3.6-m DOT at geographically advantageous location (Sagar 2017;Omar et al 2017), more complex, modern and sensitive back-end instruments based on the cutting edge technology need to be built using expertise available not only with Indian and Belgian but the entire global astronomical communities. Such instruments will make the 3.6-m DOT as one of the most productive and useful observing facilities to the global astronomers particularly for the astrophysical studies of transient objects like Supernovae and GRB afterglows, etc.…”

Section: Next Generation Back-end Instruments and Their Science Drivermentioning

confidence: 99%

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Scientific Summary of the First BINA Workshop

Sagar¹

2018

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Scientific summary of the first Belgo-Indian Network for Astronomy & Astrophysics (BINA) work-shop is presented here. In the workshop, invited talks were supplemented with the contributory talks and poster paper presentations. The talks presented during the workshop provide latest information on the 3.6-m Devasthal Optical Telescope (DOT) and 4-m International Liquid Mirror Telescope (ILMT) projects. These observing fa-cilities are built jointly by the astronomical communities of India and Belgium. In the ILMT, reseachers from Canada, Poland and Uzbekistan are also actively participating. Preliminary results obtained from the on sky test indicate that 3.6-m DOT is capable of resolving binary stars separated by ~ 0.4 arc second. CCD observations obtained with the telescope indicate that atmospheric conditions at Devasthal are very good for optical observations and the site can be considered internationally competitive. Buildings and telescope houses constructed at Devasthal have not deteriorated natural seeing conditions observed at the site ~ 2 decades ago during 1997¬1999. Pointing and tracking accuracies of the 3.6-m DOT are as per specifications. All these indicate that on sky performance of the newly installed 3.6-m DOT is better than the specifications prescribed at the time of placing order. It is therefore capable of providing internationally competitive science with the modern backend instruments and also have global importance due to their geographical location particularly for the time domain and multi-wavelength astrophysical studies. A large number of talks and poster papers presented during the workshop discussed astrophysical potential of the Indian largest size (4 meter class) new technology optical telescopes located at Devasthal. All these indicate beyond doubt that there are enormous opportunities for the growth of astronomy in India.

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“…The tracking accuracy of the DOT is < 0.1 root-mean-square in open loop for ∼ 1 minute and < 0.1 for about an hour in closed loop mode (Sagar et al 2012). A detailed description of the 3.6-m DOT can be found in Kumar et al (2018) and Omar et al (2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A high-resolution spectrograph for the 3.6-m Devasthal Optical Telescope of ARIES

Pandey¹,

Pant²,

Joshi³

2019

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A high-resolution spectrograph for the 3.6-m Devasthal Optical Telescope (DOT) of Aryabhatta Reearch Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES; Nainital, India) is envisaged to achieve the various science goals. The spectrograph will have two modes of spectral resolution (40 000 and 80 000) with a wavelength coverage of 380 - 900 nm. The design of the spectrograph will be similar to many contemporary high-resolution spectrometers in the world and will be based on a modern design using the white pupil concept. It will be a bench mounted fibre-fed spectrograph. In this article, we present the various science goals, technical specifications, and concept of design for the proposed spectrograph.

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Scientific Capabilities and Advantages of the 3.6 Meter Optical Telescope at Devasthal, Uttarakhand

Cited by 19 publications

References 6 publications

First-Light Images from Low-Dispersion Spectrograph-Cum-Imager on 3.6m Devasthal Optical Telescope

First-Light Images from Low-Dispersion Spectrograph-Cum-Imager on 3.6m Devasthal Optical Telescope

Scientific Summary of the First BINA Workshop

A high-resolution spectrograph for the 3.6-m Devasthal Optical Telescope of ARIES

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