Chandigarh,Physics department of Panjab University has recently purchased an astronomical telescope (11" Schimdt-Cassegrain telescope) along with some accessories. you can see some of the photographs of the moon’s impact craters, mountains, mare and ridges taken with our telescope. In addition, the photographs of Saturn (its satellites) and Jupiter are also enclosed. The digital photographs were taken either with a CCD (charge coupled device:- Neximage)or a Sony Cybershot, and were processed with an astronomical software (Registax) to reduce the effects due to atmospheric turbulence and ccd noise.
A feature as wide as ~5 km can be easily resolved on the surface of the moon with the telescope. The composite image of the Saturn and its four major satellites (file:s-sat1.jpg) was obtained by combining the saturn (true color) image (file:saturn1.jpg) with its satellites image (file: sat_satellites.jpg). In order to capture the image of the faint satellites, the gain of the ccd has to be increased manifold. This results in an overexposed saturn. The saturn has to be photographed separately for normal exposure to reveal its true colors,
rings and the Cassini gap in the ring system. This is a standard photographic technique to image two contrastingly different bright objects. The Titan (in orange-yellow color) can be identified clearly among the satellites. Complex hydrocarbons in the Titan’s atmosphere creates thick smog and the orange glow is probably due to tholin compound.