Galaxy and Extra Galaxies Laboratory

Star Clusters Unit

It focuses on  studying the astrometric, photometric, and spectroscopic analysis of Galactic star clusters (open and globular star clusters). The observations are taken from our Kottamia Astronomical Observatory (KAO) with a two-meter telescope, and from the database and archives of space telescopes.

Open star clusters Studying of open stellar clusters and assigning their physical properties within the Galaxy and assigning physical properties of variable stars and B stars inside the open clusters.. Stellar clusters are clusters of stars ranging in number from a few stars to a few tens of thousands, that were formed from the same giant molecular cloud and have roughly the same age. More than 1,100 open clusters have been discovered within the Milky Way Galaxy, and many more are thought to exist. Prof.Dr. Ashraf Tadros was awarded the State Encouragement Prize in 2009 for these studies. Globular star clusters Studying of Globular clusters and assigning their physical properties within the galaxy .. A globular cluster is a spherical collection of stars that orbits a galactic core. Globular clusters are very tightly bound by gravity, which gives them their spherical shapes, and relatively high stellar densities toward their centers.  

Extra-Galaxies Unit

In this unit, it is interested to study the photometric and spectroscopic analysis of galaxies (Spirals, Ellipticals, and Lenticulars), groups of galaxies, a cluster of galaxies, and interacting galaxies, obtaining the observations from our Kottamia Astronomical Observatory (KAO) with a two-meter telescope, Or using the observations from the database and archives of Space Telescopes. Cluster of Galaxies Collaboration has been done with researchers from Germany and France to study and discover galaxy clusters using astronomical observations taken with space telescopes in the X-ray range and terrestrial telescopes in the field of visible rays.

Sky light unit

Light pollution is the industrial vehicle of sky light resulting from the dispersion of lights of major cities on the sky page. And the improper lighting of the streets of major cities is a major reason in this regard, which results in harm to the national economy in wasting electrical energy, in addition to the negative impact on the accuracy of astronomical observations. The idea of studying light pollution started at the institute in 1982 when the state decided to establish the city of hope near the Kottamia astronomical observatory. Both the Cairo sky and the Kottamia astronomical observatory were studied by taking photometric observations using the photoelectric scanner in 1982, and the results showed that the impact of Cairo’s light on astronomical observations is noticeable above the western horizon of the observatory, and that the establishment of the city of hope increases this lighting, which reduces the efficiency of the telescope, and in fact was canceled The idea of creating a city.

Devices owned by Galaxy and extra galaxies Laboratory

Photoelectric photometer

• It is a night sky photometry instrument that is used to measure the brightness or the intensity of light.
• The main use is for measuring twilight and night sky brightness in different bands.
• The photometer is equipped with two filter wheels which contain (UBVRI) plus neutral and narrow band filters.
• A photomultiplier tube is coupled with the photometer for receiving and multiplying the incident photons.
• A CCD camera is equipped within the photometer.

The instrument is fully computerized and can be controlled via a computer