Doing Astronomy with Small Telescopes

Abstract

We are playing a lead role for growth of astronomy and its quality teaching and research in Manipur, a State located at northeast India (longitude = 93 ° 58'E; latitude = 24 ° 44'N; altitude = 782 m). We have innovatively designed and constructed three cost effective observatories, each costing a few hundred USD. These observatories are completely different in design and are perfectly usable for doing serious work on astronomical observation and measurements, using small ground-based telescopes. One Celestron CGE1400 telescope is housed with equatorial mounting in one of three constructed observatories and the same observatory has been inducted, since January 2012, as one of the members of the “Orion Project”, which is an international project headquartered at Phoenix, Arizona, USA, dedicated for photometric and spectroscopic observations of five bright variable stars of the Orion constellation. We have been producing high precision BVRI photometric data that match well with those produced by other observatories enrolled in the Orion project. Our photometric data were presented and discussed in the 33rd Annual Conference of the Society for Astronomical Sciences: Symposium on Telescope Science, held at Ontario, California, USA during June 12 - 14, 2014. Further, we could successfully demonstrate them to the entire population of the State and play live shows of the observation of three spectacular astronomical events namely, solar eclipse of 15th January 2010, lunar eclipse of 10th December 2011 and Transit of Venus of June 6, 2012. We have conducted a number of seminars and workshops for training and research in astronomy. In the present paper, we would like describe our self-built observatories, our observational facilities, the BVRI photometric data that we acquired for the Orion project, and other activities undertaken for growth of astronomy activities in the State of Manipur, India.