BILKENT ASTRONOMY PAGE

BILKENT UNIVERSITY ASTRONOMY

The Venus transit of 2004 (first time since 112 years!) on June 8, during approximately 8:15 to 14:20. See the relevant ESO page for details.
Mars at its closest approach
Our Hale-Bopp Comet Photographs
Mars Pathfinder spacecraft lands on Mars Some photographs from NASA
Watch the Iridium Flares!
The fleet of low-flying Iridium satellites placed in orbit for personal communications result in a spectacular "flare" of light in the sky which usually outshines all other sky objects visible at that time. The reflection of sunlight from these satellites traces a path on Earth, a prediction for which is available from The German Space Operations Centre (GSOC).
The flare is visible for a few seconds only, so you will need to look into the given area of the sky without interruption as the predicted time approaches - an accurately set watch is a big help. You can obtain the predicted times of the flares for your area by first entering your position on Earth on the Heavens-Above Gmbh Satellite Visibility page. Or you can directly go to the relevant page with Bilkent's coordinates (39.8679N, 32.7489E) through this link. You can then choose the type of prediction you want, the most useful seem to be the weekly twilight and daytime predictions. (Since the track of the flare on Earth is quite narrow, the indicated intensities will be somewhat different if you are not in campus, but say in Ankara.)
Total Solar Eclipse of 1999 August 11 - -
Bilkent Faculty of Science had a day trip to Kastamonu on August 11th, where the totality lasted more than two minutes. As was to be expected, it was a fabulous experience. We will post photographs of the outing as well as the eclipse when available..

The "Trapezeum" in the great Orion nebula, as photographed with
CCD camera on our telescope on the night of December 25, 1997.

Next Scheduled Telescope Observation:

The next scheduled telescope session is on

Our usual observation location is the parking lot between the Sports Hall and the Advanced Research Laboratories of the Physics Department (one of the darkest spots at the main campus!). We will also be taking photographs using the telescope, at which times we ask for your patience, as this process will interrupt visual observations.

We try to schedule a viewing activity every Thursday, more or less on a regular basis. However, because of uncertainties in weather, we occasionally have to cancel a scheduled activity. Check this page after 17:00 for possible cancelations due to bad weather. If you would like to be informed of astronomy activities (and possible cancelations) automatically by e-mail, please send a request to astro@fen.bilkent.edu.tr.

It gets cooler during the night, so remember to dress accordingly.

Some pictures taken with our telescope:

The Moon The Great Orion Nebula Saturn

Jupiter Jupiter with its satellites

These photographs do no justice to the breathtaking view that can be seen through the eyepiece of the telescope. Join us at a viewing session and see for yourself! (Click on the pictures for a bigger image, and on the label for more information on the subject from a NASA link.)

The photographs were taken with our Celestron C-11 Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope, with a Nikon F2 (at the prime focus for the Moon and the Orion Nebula, behind an eyepiece for Jupiter and Saturn). The exposure times for the three photographs were 1/30, 20, and 2 seconds respectively, on a 400 ASA color film. We are working on getting better photographs with the use of a ccd camera. The aperture of the telescope is 28cm (11") and has a focal length of 2.8 meters. The background haze in the photographs is due to the ambient light in the sky, originating from the city lights. For photographs with a higher contrast, the telescope will have to be set up in a darker place, farther away from the city.

Take your own astro-photographs: If you have a camera with a Nikon-type lens mount and which allows long exposure times, you can use our camera adapter to connect it to the telescope. We will provide help about the required exposure times. For most applications, faster films are preferable. Bring along your shutter extension cable.

Basic information on astronomy:

Sky Coordinates

An astronomy tutorial from St. John's University

Other astronomy web pages from Turkey:

ODTU-Amator Astronomi Toplulugu

Ankara University Observatory

Bosphorous University Kandilli Observatory

Ege University Observatory

TUBITAK Turkish National Observatory

Istanbul University - Astronomy Department

Some amateur astronomy related links:

This Week's "Sky at a Glance" by Sky Publishing
(see also other links from their home page)

Space Calendar of sky events by NASA

Information about the planets by NASA

Hubble Space Telescope by Space Telescope Science Institute.
See especially the The STScI Digitized Sky Survey through which
you can obtain coordinates of objects and charts for various parts
of the sky. (Enter for example M31 for Andremoda galaxy and use
the coordinates you get for a chart of the region.)

Students for the Exploration and Development of Space at the
University of Arizona, see especially the pages about the
Messier Objects, with their beautiful pictures. Start, as they suggest,
with the first object M1, the Crab Nebula.

To: Faculty of Science or Bilkent University web pages
The astronomy-related activities are organized by the Physics Department.
We welcome questions and comments: astro@fen.bilkent.edu.tr.
Important: Please place the code "NOSPAM" in the subject of your e-mail. This address automatically re-routes mail to appropriate people. Mail will not be routed properly unless the above code is found in the subject field of your message.

mailto:progress@fen.bilkent.edu.tr