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2 - Optical Astronomy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 December 2022

Giuseppe Bertin
Affiliation:
Università degli Studi di Milano
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Summary

Progress in astronomy is associated with the construction of new telescopes

and new instruments. This chapter only mentions a few selected initiatives of interest,

to give a flavor of the tools that astronomers are considering for optical observations from the ground and from space. Similarly, on the side of science, this chapter examines only one major set of observations from space, the so-called Hubble Deep Fields, and then proceeds to outline a landmark discovery made at the turn of the century, that is the observations of distant supernovae that have led to convincing evidence that the universe is not only expanding, but, at the present epoch, is actually accelerating. A large investment, not only in the field of optical astronomy, is being made in placing telescopes at special locations very far from Earth. These special sites correspond to Lagrangian points, that is, equilibrium points of the restricted three-body problem for the Sun-Earth system. At the end of this chapter, a digression is made on these concepts, which also allows us to introduce the tidal radius, one concept frequently used in dynamical astronomy.

Type
Chapter
Information
Visible and Dark Matter in the Universe
A Short Primer on Astrophysical Dynamics
, pp. 22 - 36
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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  • Optical Astronomy
  • Giuseppe Bertin, Università degli Studi di Milano
  • Book: Visible and Dark Matter in the Universe
  • Online publication: 08 December 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009023368.003
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  • Optical Astronomy
  • Giuseppe Bertin, Università degli Studi di Milano
  • Book: Visible and Dark Matter in the Universe
  • Online publication: 08 December 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009023368.003
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Optical Astronomy
  • Giuseppe Bertin, Università degli Studi di Milano
  • Book: Visible and Dark Matter in the Universe
  • Online publication: 08 December 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009023368.003
Available formats
×