BOSCHA Planetary Observatory location near Baruajag-Lembang, Bandung. A biggest telescope in Indonesia for planetary observatory, built during Dutch occupancy of Indonesia. Now under occupancy of Institute of Technology of Bandung (ITB)
Asteroids and comets are small heavenly bodies but their movements must be constantly monitored.Despite their relatively small sizes, these heavenly bodies can have adverse effects if they come close to planet Earth at a high speed. They could be pulled by the Earth's gravitation and their friction with the earth's atmosphere could produce heat.
Indonesia has two observatories: Bosscha in Lembang, West Java and Watukosek Solar Observatory in Pasuruan, East Java, where astronomers observe such heavenly bodies.
Bosscha is the laboratory for the astronomy education in Indonesia and is used for monitoring a greater variety of space objects, while the Watukosek Observatory is used solely to study the sun.
Bosscha Observatory currently has five refractors, each with their own ""house"". The most interesting is the Zeiss Dome Building, which is the biggest of the five. There are also the Schmidt-Bimasakti, Unitron, Bamberg, Goto and GAO-ITB houses. GAO is the Gunma Astronomical Observatory.
The special house for the Japan-granted GAO telescope is located to the west of the Unitron and was built in January 2005.
Zeiss is the oldest telescope and began functioning in 1928. With a double refractor capacity, this telescope is able to obtain an accurate record of the position of a heavenly body in the order of a tenth second of a protractor for a visual observation of a star.The telescope is also useful for the detailed imaging of bright comets, craters moon's surface and positioning Mars, Saturn and Jupiter. The Zeiss telescope, which has a searching lens with a diameter of 40 cm, has been used for over 10,000 visual double observations.
The Bamberg telescope is located in another half-cylindrical building which can be moved forward to close and backward to open. This telescope is used only to observe heavenly bodies at a distance higher than 30 degrees azimuth in the east-south-west sectors.
Visitors can use this telescope to see the image of a lunar crater, double stars and planets and other heavenly bodies directly through a telescope.
The Schmidt-Bimasakti telescope has a Schmidt optical system invented by Benhard Schmidt of Estonia in 1930. With a 71-centimeter lens and a 127-centimeter focus, this telescope offers a broad viewing field. It is ideal for surveying the skies.
The Unitron telescope can be used to observe lunar and solar eclipses.
With quite a few smaller telescope and six larger ones, Bosscha Observatory, observatory chief Taufik Hidayat said, has helped produce 500 working papers in the international astronomical world.
The observatory has become the main laboratory for Bandung Institute of Technology astronomy students.
Bosscha Observatory is very important for Indonesia, with its predominantly Muslim population, because it has been appointed to cooperate with the Religious Affairs Ministry to provide hilal services, or finding out the new crescent moon, to determine the first day of Ramadhan and Idul Fitri.""Even today we are still the best observatory in Southeast Asia,"" said Taufik.
Aside from the assistance from the government and from the ITB, the observatory also receives donations from the Japanese and Dutch governments, with the most recent grant -- 50,000 euro -- coming from Dutch Minister of Education Maria van der Hoeven in May this year.
Today Bosscha still enjoys recognition as a very important observatory in the international network of telescopes because of its proximity to the equator.
As Japan's GAO is unable to observe the southern skies, it has, since June 2006, established remote observing cooperation via the Internet with Bosscha.
Considering Bosscha's achievements, Indonesia should take pride in and take good care of this observatory.
Source from www.thejakartapost.com, www.jabarprov.go.id
