2004 ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS - Indian Academy of Sciences

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CHAPTER 3 on a site surrounded by a large water body provide superior image quality over the entire day. The prime examples are the Big Bear Solar Observatory (California, USA), Udaipur Solar Observatory (USO) of the Physical Research Laboratory, and the Huairou Solar Station (Beijing, China). The availability of good quality images has been amply demonstrated over the past 25 years of observations from the island observatory at Udaipur where, on an average, about 265 days in a year are clear. It would be important to urgently undertake a re-evaluation of this site for a 50cm class telescope. Assuming that the result of such a critical evaluation would be positive, then given the available infrastructure, expertise, and logistics, the proposed telescope could be located on this island site. Modern networking, remote operation, and automation techniques should be employed to allow this facility to be accessed and used by a wide user community. • A Spectrograph, • A Polarimeter, and • A Fabry – Perot based Universal Filter. The polarimeter could be integrated with the telescope and positioned before the first oblique reflection. The spectrograph could be on a stable platform and fed by a beam extracted from the telescope. The narrow band filter will be used for obtaining magnetograms, as well as dopplergrams. The primary objective of such a telescope will be to study the solar activity phenomena from the Indian longitude belt in which modern solar instruments are rare or non-existent. By keeping a target of obtaining vector magnetograms at a spatial resolution of 0.4 arcsec and longitudinal magnetograms, as well as dopplergrams, at a resolution of 0.2 arcsec, we would be competitive in certain areas, and complementary in other areas on the global scene. It would be desirable if such a telescope has at least three major back-end instruments: Other Recommendations Solar Data Archival Centre There has been a great tradition in astronomy of sharing data. During the past two decades or so, data archives have been effectively mined by countless number of astronomers. The Virtual Solar Observatory and the International Virtual Observatory are being set up. Keeping in mind these developments, it would be highly desirable to set up a solar data archival centre. The Kodaikanal Observatory of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics possesses a rich collection of synoptic data going back to almost hundred years. This data, which is presently on photographic plates and films, should be digitized. With the use of a good link to the Kodaikanal Observatory, such a centre (possibly based at IIA, Bangalore) will be able to provide online and updated synoptic data to the solar astronomy community all over the world. Similarly, the data being generated at Udaipur and at Nainital from optical observations, and the radio observations from the GMRT, the Ooty Radio 33
SOLAR PHYSICS Telescope and the Heliograph in Gauribidanur need to be archived and made available to the community. A National Solar Physics Programme The solar physics community in the country is fairly small, and even they are distributed over quite a few research institutions and universities. As a result, the size of any group in a single institution is sub-critical. This serious problem – which affects other areas of research in astronomy also – needs to be addressed urgently. One way of tackling it is to evolve a coordinated approach, in which researchers from several institutions collaborate in identifying a key problem, build the necessary facility and pursue research. In this context, the following comments of a US decadal survey on solar research are very apt: “The critical elements that enable the capacity of state-of-the-art observing systems and the potential of richly populated data collections to be translated into scientific understanding are people, programs, and institutions. That is, progress in science depends on being able to draw on a critical-mass-size research community (people) who, in turn, are supported by adequate intellectual and physical infrastructure (institutions). Specific programs can serve to integrate the contributions of various kinds of research (e.g., observations, theory, and modeling) and promote the synthesis of new perspectives on critical scientific problems.’’ (Source: http://www.nationalacademies/ssb) The objectives of a coordinated Solar Physics Programme It is envisaged that in this new approach, namely to form a scientific consortium, the following activities will be brought under the common umbrella: • Planning and organizing schools/workshops that will target specific goals and scientific problems. • Organizing workshops for discussing results and writing up of papers. • Planning and preparation of modules to be used in Universities and other HRD centres for training young people in solar physics. • Planning and overseeing joint instrumentation projects involving engineers and scientists from multiple institutions. • Administering Fellowships and Visitor Appointments to young Ph.Ds to work with different solar physics groups, etc. 34
Page 1 and 2: ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS A Decadal
Page 3 and 4: This publication of the Academy on
Page 5 and 6: Preface The Indian Academy of Scien
Page 7 and 8: The Academy Committee for Astronomy
Page 9 and 10: h e P a n e l s Theoretical Astroph
Page 11 and 12: C H A P T E R 1 Executive Summary
Page 13 and 14: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The recommendatio
Page 15 and 16: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY feasibility study
Page 17 and 18: C H A P T E R 2 The Present Revolut
Page 19 and 20: THE PRESENT REVOLUTION IN ASTRONOMY
Page 37 and 38: A large eruptive prominence in HeII
Page 39 and 40: SOLAR PHYSICS • Detailed study of
Page 41 and 42: SOLAR PHYSICS Nainital Observatory
Page 43: SOLAR PHYSICS Some Possible New Ini
Page 47 and 48: C H A P T E R 4 Optical, Infrared &
Page 49 and 50: OPTICAL, INFRARED & ULTRAVIOLET AST
Page 69 and 70: One of the 30 antennas of the GMRT
Page 71 and 72: RADIO ASTRONOMY India’s location
Page 73 and 74: RADIO ASTRONOMY The first telescope
Page 75 and 76: RADIO ASTRONOMY Central Electronic
Page 77 and 78: RADIO ASTRONOMY • Resolution of t
Page 79 and 80: RADIO ASTRONOMY Some recommendation
Page 81 and 82: C H A P T E R 6 High Energy Astrono
Page 83 and 84: HIGH ENERGY ASTRONOMY 100 cm 2 area
Page 85 and 86: HIGH ENERGY ASTRONOMY Areas of Rese
Page 87 and 88: HIGH ENERGY ASTRONOMY remnant — E
Page 89 and 90: HIGH ENERGY ASTRONOMY detectors, an
Page 91 and 92: HIGH ENERGY ASTRONOMY Gamma Ray Ast
Page 93 and 94: HIGH ENERGY ASTRONOMY A gamma ray b
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HIGH ENERGY ASTRONOMY Cosmic Rays T
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HIGH ENERGY ASTRONOMY from Hyderaba
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HIGH ENERGY ASTRONOMY • Solar con
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HIGH ENERGY ASTRONOMY nuclear compo
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HIGH ENERGY ASTRONOMY New initiativ
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C H A P T E R Theoretical Astrophys
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THEORETICAL ASTROPHYSICS • The di
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THEORETICAL ASTROPHYSICS There has
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THEORETICAL ASTROPHYSICS 5. Equatio
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C H A P T E R Gravitation and Parti
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GRAVITATION AND PARTICLE ASTROPHYSI
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C H A P T E R Recommendations 9
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RECOMMENDATIONS different aspects s
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RECOMMENDATIONS was installed there
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RECOMMENDATIONS Keeping in mind the
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RECOMMENDATIONS The 1 m telescope a
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RECOMMENDATIONS as the technology t
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RECOMMENDATIONS The committee appre
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RECOMMENDATIONS • All Sky Monitor
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RECOMMENDATIONS using our facilitie
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RECOMMENDATIONS • The committee s
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List of addresses Radio Observatori
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S.N. Bose National Centre for Basic
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Indian Academy of Sciences C. V. Ra
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2004 ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS - Indian Academy of Sciences

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