Indian scientists develop low cost optical spectrograph

The indigenous efforts to build complex instruments like ADFOSC in India is an important step to become ‘Aatmanirbhar’ in the field of astronomy and astrophysics, says ARIES.

Indian scientists have indigenously designed and developed a low cost optical spectrograph that can locate sources of faint light from distant quasars and galaxies in a very young universe, regions around supermassive black holes around the galaxies, and cosmic explosions. Earlier, such spectroscopes were so far imported from abroad involving high costs. Let’s read more about the device built by Indian scientists…

The optical spectrograph named as Aries-Devasthal Faint Object Spectrograph & Camera (ADFOSC), indigenously designed and developed by Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES), Nainital, is about 2.5 times less costlier compared to the imported ones and can locate sources of light.

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Working of the spectroscope

The spectroscope, the largest of its kind among the existing astronomical spectrographs in the country, has been successfully commissioned on the 3.6 m Devasthal Optical Telescope (DOT), the largest in the country and in Asia, near Nainital in Uttarakhand.

This instrument uses a complex arrangement of several lenses made of special glasses that are polished to better than 5nm smoothness to produce sharp images of the celestial sky.

Photons coming from distant celestial sources, collected by the telescope, are sorted into different colours by the spectrograph and are finally converted into electronic recordable signals using an in-house developed charge-coupled device camera cooled to an extremely low temperature of -120°C.

Helpful in studying distant galaxies

The spectrograph is presently being used by astronomers from India and abroad to study distant quasars and galaxies in a very young universe, regions around supermassive black holes around the galaxies, cosmic explosions like supernovae and highly energetic gamma ray bursts, young and massive stars, and faint dwarf galaxies.

The indigenous efforts to build complex instruments like ADFOSC in India is an important step to become ‘Aatmanirbhar’ in the field of astronomy and astrophysics, says ARIES.

Collaborative effort

Expertise from various national institutes, organisations, including ISRO and some micro-small-medium enterprises, were involved to review and build parts of the instrument serving as an example of effective collaboration

With this expertise, ARIES now plans to commission more complex instruments such as spectro-polarimeter and high-spectral resolution spectrograph on the 3.6 m Devasthal telescope in the near future.

Devasthal Optical Telescope in a nut shell

• The ‘Made in India’ optical spectrograph is named as Aries-Devasthal Faint Object Spectrograph & Camera (ADFOSC).

• It is indigenously designed and developed by Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES), Nainital.

• DOT locates sources of faint light from distant quasars and galaxies in a very young universe, regions around supermassive black-holes around the galaxies, and cosmic explosions.

• It uses a complex arrangement of lenses made of glasses, polished to better than 5-nm smoothness to produce sharp images of the sky.

• Such spectroscopes were so far imported from abroad involved high costs.

• The total cost of this instrument is around Rs 4 crore.

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