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Invisible Astronomy

by George Russell

I have always been fascinated by the fact that our eyes sense only a tiny sliver of the electromagnetic spectrum. You can ‘see’ this when you look at a graphical display of the spectrum spread across the page as illustrated in some encyclopedia or other scientific source relating to light. To get such information on paper, a logarithmic scale is used to get it to fit because it (the spectrum) is so vast.

Only recently, astronomers have been able to view celestial phenomenon outside the visible spectrum using ground based radio and ground based infrared devices to enhance the astronomers knowledge of the universe.

On the lower side of the visible spectrum, the advances of radio astronomy parallel the development of bigger and better antennas and of electronic detection devices that use low noise gallium arsenide materials in transistors and such.

Ever since Karl Jansky in the 1930's identified radio noise as a celestial object in the Milky Way of Sagittarius and Grote Reber, who later followed up on Jansky's work to make detailed maps of the cosmic radio source, radio astronomy has made tremendous strides. The development of weak signal communication techniques seems to have followed radio astronomy's advances.

With regard to ground based infrared devices, what I have seemed to observe also is that the development of more sensitive photoelectric systems has led to greatly enhanced television cameras; CCD's for example. For the longest time, the most sensitive photoelectric device just matched the acuity of the human eye. But then, as breakthroughs occurred to our understanding of the nature of the materials used in transistors for example, photoelectric assemblies became much more sensitive than the human eye and astronomers began using them to discover what’s happening on the other side (above) the visual spectrum.

The utilization of more of the electromagnetic spectrum has given astronomers new insights in the understanding of our universe. There are still parts of the spectrum that do not penetrate to the ground but the first steps have been taken to eliminate this barrier. Space astronomy is the new frontier. Will amateur astronomers ever be able to take advantage of the new space telescope, HST, and make meaningful contributions to the astronomer’s art? We shall see. I wonder what ever happened to the project where amateur astronomers were to launch their own space telescope? But that’s another story.

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