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Divisions >> Department of the experimental astronomy

Department of the experimental astronomy

Head of Department
Dr., Sichevsky Sergey

STRUCTURE OF THE DEPARTMENT

  • Group “WSO-UV” (head of the group,Full Dr., Prof. RAS Sachkov Michail E.)
  • Group ground support to space projects (head of the group,Full Dr.,Savanov I. S. )

MAIN FIELDS OF RESEARCH

  • Space missions
  • Ground based INASAN telescopes

Space missions

EXOMARS. ExoMarsisa jointESA – RoscosmosprojectforMarsexplorationusing a satellite to be launched onto an orbit around this planet and using instrumentation to be landed onto Mars’s surface. Theprojectconsistsoftwospacecrafts: the first one was successfully launched from Baikonur Launchpad on the March 14, 2016, the second will be launched in 2020 (according to the current time schedule). INASANparticipatesinworks on aspecialsoftwarecreationforRussianComplexofDownlink of Science Data to be operated with these spacecrafts. Thecomplexisunderconstructionand it is basedonESAstandards. Its main aim is to make it possible to use Russian Ground Stations for international science missions as unified ones.

ASTRON-2. The ASTRON-2 project is a continuation of Universe exploration in UltraViolet spectral domainafter Soviet ASTRON mission (1983-1989) and WSO-UV mission. Technically it is based on facilities that were created during works on the World Space Observatory – Ultraviolet project. Among main science tasks there are spectral and photometric all-sky deep survey in UV. The main instrument of the observatory is 210 cm aperture telescope with 2 sq. degrees field of view. Using the telescope the deep spectral survey with spectral resolution of 500 will be performed for objects up to 20 stellar magnitude in the spectral range of 120-310 nm. Additional 6 small telescopes of 40-cm diameter and 10 sq. degrees field of view will be used for survey in visual spectral domain simultaneously with UV survey. Parameters of the ASTRON-2 mission will exceed that of the GALEX project which had 50-cm diameter telescope and have been operated on orbit in 2003-2013. GALEX made the first very large UV photometrical survey of the most part of the sky excluding areas around stars brighter than 10th magnitude, i.e. excluding Galaxy plane.The ASTRON-2 mission is can be called “Super-GALEX”.

FRESNEL TELESCOPE.This is an ultra-light weight telescope that is based on new optical approaches and diffraction focusing. A high dynamical range of images together with low limitations on large optical element creation are the main privileges of such instrument. This may be an alternative to classical optics for very large (40-m) apertures in space. In 2009 in Toulouse University (France) the first ground based experiment with small Fresnel telescope prototype was successfully passed. Recently the joint group of scientists from Toulouse University (France), University Complutense de Madrid (Spain) and Institute of Astronomy RAS initiated activities on small Fresnel telescope to be realized as International Space Station experiment.

PLANETARYMONITOR.ThisisanexperimenttoberealizedontheInternationalSpace Stationin2020.Themainpartoftheexperimentpayloadisa 60-cmaperturetelescope. Imagersandaspectrographwillbeusedforclimatemonitoring of Solar System planets, registration of short time scale processes and exoplanetary studies. INASAN takes part in works on the telescope creation as well as a UV-camera design.

Ground based INASAN telescopes

Department of Experimental Astronomy INASAN works on a network of wide-field ground based telescopesfor all-sly surveys including astrophysical observations and astrometrical and photometrical asteroid observations.
All telescopes are included into the system that is connected with larger 1-2 m class telescopes of observation support. At current stage existed INASAN observational infrastructure is used. These are Terscole observatory, Zvenigorod observatory and 1-m telescope in Simeiz.
The wide-field patented telescope VT-72e was created. In this telescope the modified optical scheme of Schmidt-Slefogt-Richter is used, the telescope aperture is 400 mm, field of view is 9.6 sq. degrees, the telescope is installed onto ASA DDM 160 mounting.
A cluster of two wide-field VT-78d telescopes was created. Both telescopes have 250-mm aperture and 78.5 sq.degrees field of view for 50×50 mm CCD. The limiting magnitude without filters is 18.
Another robotic telescope was created based on 20-cm aperture OfficinaStellare RH-200 telescope and ASA DDM85 mounting. The telescope control system includes control box, meteorology station and all-sly camera.
The software for observation reduction includes APEX-II packet as well as archive system and planning system.


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