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Opticals
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Optical astronomy includes those portions of ultraviolet, visual, and infrared astronomy that benefit from the use of quartz crystal or silica glass telescope components.
Observations at these wavelengths generally use optical components (mirrors, lenses and solid state digital detectors).
In popular culture optical astronomy encompasses a wide variety of observations via telescopes that are sensitive in the range of visible light. Scientists would call this visible-light astronomy. It includes imaging, where a picture of some sort is made of the object; photometry, where the amount of light coming from an object is measured, spectroscopy, where the distribution of that light with respect to its wavelength is measured, and polarimetry where the polarisation state of that light is measured.
Def. astronomy using infrared, visible and/or ultraviolet wavelengths is called optical astronomy.
Def. an optical system in telescopes that reduces atmospheric distortion by dynamically measuring and correcting wavefront aberrations in real time, often by using a deformable mirror is called adaptive optics.
"Already it has allowed ground-based telescopes to produce images with sharpness rivalling those from the Hubble Space Telescope. The technique is expected to revolutionize the future of ground-based optical astronomy."[1]
The color index is a simple numerical expression that determines the color of an object, which in the case of a star gives its temperature. To measure the index, one observes the magnitude of an object successively through two different filters, such as U and B, or B and V, where U is sensitive to ultraviolet rays, B is sensitive to blue light, and V is sensitive to visible (green-yellow) light (see also: UBV system). The set of passbands or filters is called a photometric system. The difference in magnitudes found with these filters is called the U-B or B–V color index, respectively. The smaller the color index, the more blue (or hotter) the object is. Conversely, the larger the color index, the more red (or cooler) the object is. This is a consequence of the logarithmic magnitude scale, in which brighter objects have smaller (more negative) magnitudes than dimmer ones. For comparison, the yellowish Sun has a B–V index of 0.656 ± 0.005,[2] while the bluish Rigel has B–V –0.03 (its B magnitude is 0.09 and its V magnitude is 0.12, B–V = –0.03).[3] The passbands most optical astronomers use are the UBVRI filters, where the U, B, and V filters are as mentioned above, the R filter passes red light, and the I filter passes infrared light. These filters were specified as particular combinations of glass filters and photomultiplier tubes.
An optical telescope gathers and focuses light mainly from the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum (although some work in the infrared and ultraviolet).[4]
References
[edit | edit source]- ↑ François Roddier, ed (1999). Adaptive Optics in Astronomy. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. pp. 411. ISBN 0 521 55375 X. http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/samples/cam031/00500597.pdf. Retrieved 2012-02-15.
- ↑ David F. Gray (1992), The Inferred Color Index of the Sun, Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, vol. 104, no. 681, pp. 1035-1038 (November 1992)
- ↑ The Simbad Astronomical Database' Rigel page
- ↑ Barrie William Jones. The search for life continued: planets around other stars. p. 111. http://books.google.com/books?id=5wX9aHqfBS0C&pg=PA111&lr=&cd=55#v=onepage&f=false.