Tarea 4, Curso Astronomı́a Observacional Posgr.

Astro 2/2019
04 de marzo de 2020 ; entregar hasta el 13 de marzo
Heinz Andernach, Depto. de Astronomı́a, UG

Para tu nota de mi parte del curso: tareas valen 50%, examen parcial 50%.
En esta tarea puedes obtener un total de 26 puntos.

1. Calculate the time lapse from (a) sunset to civil twilight, and from (b) civil to astronomical
twilight for (i) an observer on the equator on June 21 and on March 21; for (ii) an observer
at Greenwich (latitude φ = +51.5◦ ) on March 21 and December 21. (4)
2. The sky needs to be sufficiently dark for astronomical observations in the optical. These condi-
tions are met from the end of the so-called astronomical twilight after sunset and its beginning
before sunrise, when the Sun it at least 18◦ below the horizon (z⊙ > 108◦ ).
(a) Which nights of the year (give the dates) are those with the shortest time between astro-
nomical twilights (from after sunset to before sunrise), for the northern and southern terrestrial
hemispheres, respectively ?
(b) What are the most northerly (or southerly) geographic latitudes on Earth such that the
Sun attains > 18◦ below horizon for at least a short instant throughout the entire year? Does
Paris, France, lie within this region ?
(c) Use the site www.ing.iac.es/ds/staralt/index.php to find out how long the shortest and
longest nights are (between astronomical twilight, the vertical dashed lines) for San Pedro
Mártir Obs, B.C., Mexico (λ = 244.5364◦ E, φ = +31.04◦ ).
(d) Try staralt for Brorfelde Observatory in Denmark (φ = +55.62◦ ). How long is the “astro-
nomically” dark night on 21-December ? On 21 June, does astronomical twilight really end
after sunset at this observatory ? (6)
3. (a) Assuming that the following names of astronomical objects follow the recommendations
of the IAU (as explained in class), specify the range (i.e. the lower and upper limits) and the
equinox of right ascension (RA or α) and declination (DEC or δ) at which they were discovered
(using only the information coded in their name): S5 0013+79, PKS 0123−016,
IRAS 11330+5713, SDSS J132110.82+003821.7, and 2MASX J11354907+5657086
(b) Two of these sources are the same object; based only on their names, can you tell which ?
What could be the reason for this ? (3)
4. (a) Bourda et al. (2010, A&A 520, A113) list 49 radio sources in their table 4. Using NED
and/or Simbad, try to find the correct “spelling” of names for the objects (as listed in their
column 2) SDSS J01090+1512, MC 1146+111, and RXS J13598+5911, TEX 2127+176. (Try
to find the correct closest to these names, do not give a completely different acronym for the
same object. Are there differences in the namings between NED and Simbad ? (Hint: a refcode
search may be useful.) Download the paper at adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010A&A...520A.113B.
(b) de Grijp et al. (1992, A&AS 96, 389) published redshifts for several hundred optical coun-
terparts of infrared sources from the IRAS (Infrared Astronomical Satellite) “Point Source
Catalogue” (PSC). In their table of objects they give what they call the “IRAS name”, and
for the optical position they refer to their previous paper de Grijp et al. (1987, A&AS 70, 95).
Name and position (B1950.0) for a few objects are listed in the following table:
name hhmmss.s dd’’"" | name hhmmss.s dd’’""
IRAS 0016-073 001603.6-071928 | IRAS 0026-732 002603.0-731518
IRAS 0105+331 010518.8+331115 | IRAS 0253+021 025300.2+021141
IRAS 0507-006 050729.2-003737 | IRAS 0509+009 050910.3+005837

What is the problem with these names (see vizier.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/Dic for IRAS PSC) ?
What would be the correct IRAS names for these sources, based on the positions listed in the
above table ? (6)
5. In 2017MNRAS.467.4410Agulli et al. publish the distribution of member galaxies in the Hercules
cluster (A2151), with a figure displayed below. Coordinate labels indicate RA and DEC (J2000)
in decimal degrees. Check whether the image scale in Right Ascension and Declination corre-
sponds to a real image one would obtain with a camera on a telescope. If not, by which factor,
and in which direction (RA or DEC) the published plot needs to be compressed or stretched
to display the real aspect ratio on the sky.
(Hint: if you are in doubt, try to obtain a real image, e.g. from the Digitized Sky Survey (DSS)
of this region of sky, e.g. from http://archive.stsci.edu/cgi-bin/dss form or
http://skyview.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/query.pl). (2)

6. (a) Use the SIMBAD search “by criteria” to find five stars near magnitude V∼ 1.5, and five
stars near magnitude V∼ 5.5. What is the average number of different identifiers (names) and
bibliographic references per star in Simbad, for the bright sample and for the faint sample ? (2)

7. (a) Find the number of objects with known redshift z ≥ 5.0 in SIMBAD (simbad.u-strasbg.fr)
and in NED (ned.ipac.caltech.edu). How many of them are in the northern hemisphere
(DEC(J2000)> 0◦ ) ?
(b) For the result of NED only: what fraction of redshifts (in both hemispheres) are non-
spectroscopic (e.g. photometric or other types of redshift) ?
(c) Using HyperLEDA (leda.univ-lyon1.fr) find the galaxies with diameter larger than 1◦ in
the sky, and their radial velocities. Use the SQL option with logd25 as the search parameter.
Find out what is logd25 and explain which value of logd25 you used. (3)