Abstract Details
| Name: Brijesh Kumar Affiliation: ARIES, Nainital Conference ID: ASI2019_243 Title : Update on performance of 3.6m Devasthal Optical Telescope and prospects for science observations Authors and Co-Authors : Brijesh Kumar, Saurabh Sharma, Tarun Bangia, T. S. Kumar, A. C. Gupta, A. K. Pandey, Amitesh Omar, B. Krishna Reddy, Hum Chand, Jayshreekar Pant, M. K. Joshi, Mukeshkumar Jaiswar, Nandish Nanjappa, Neelam Panwar, Sanjit Sahu, S. B. Pandey, Shobhit Yadav, Sneh Lata, Wahab Uddin Abstract Type : Oral Abstract Category : Instrumentation and Techniques Abstract : The 3.6m Devasthal Optical Telescope with active optics technology has been installed at Devasthal, Nainital and it was commissioned and made operational in March 2016. The 3.6m DOT is being used for optical studies of a wide variety of astronomical topics including follow-up studies of sources identified in the radio region by GMRT and UV/X-ray by ASTROSAT. The telescope is capable of providing seeing-limited images of celestial sources at visible and near-infrared wavelengths. Recently, the telescope was used for a detailed charactrisation of a few back-end instruments viz. TIRCAM2, 4k Optical Imager, and FOSC. The analysis of data recorded by different instruments mounted at focal plane of the telescope re-affirms the imaging capabilities of the telescope recorded at the time of commissioning in year 2016. We could measure the FWHM of stellar PSF to be 0.45 arcsec at K-band using TIRCAM2 Instrument. Meanwhile, the Primary Mirror of the Telescope was recoated in September 2018 and we have achieved the reflectivity values as per the specified standards. In this contribution, we present an overview of the performance of the instruments on telescope, the M1 coating process and future prospects for observations with the telescope. |