The Orion space telescopes were a series of two instruments flown aboard Soviet spacecraft during the 1970s to conduct ultraviolet spectroscopy of

star A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by its gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked ...

Orion 1

The Orion 1 space astrophysical observatory was installed in the orbital station Salyut 1. It was designed by

Grigor Gurzadyan Grigor Gurzadyan ( hy, Գրիգոր Գուրզադյան) (15 October 1922 – 22 February 2014) was an Armenian astronomer, and pioneer of space astronomy. Life Gurzadyan was born in 1922 in Baghdad, to parents that survived the Armenian gen ...

of Byurakan Observatory in Armenia. It was operated in June 1971 by crew member Viktor Patsayev, who thus became the first man to operate a telescope outside the Earth's atmosphere. Spectrograms of stars Vega and Beta Centauri between wavelengths 2000 and 3800 Å were obtained.

Specifications

Ultraviolet telescope Ultraviolet astronomy is the observation of electromagnetic radiation at ultraviolet wavelengths between approximately 10 and 320 nanometres; shorter wavelengths—higher energy photons—are studied by X-ray astronomy and gamma-ray ast ...

*Optical system:

Mersenne Marin Mersenne, OM (also known as Marinus Mersennus or ''le Père'' Mersenne; ; 8 September 1588 – 1 September 1648) was a French polymath whose works touched a wide variety of fields. He is perhaps best known today among mathematicians for ...

*Spectrograph:

Wadsworth Wadsworth may refer to: People * Wadsworth (surname) * Wadsworth (given name) Places * Wadsworth, Illinois, United States, a village * Wadsworth, Kansas, United States * Wadsworth, Nevada, United States, a census-designated place * Wadswo ...

*Diameter of primary mirror: 280 mm *Focal length: 1400 mm *Spectral range: 2000–3800 Å *Spectral resolution at wavelength 2600 Å: 5 Å *Film: UFSh 4, width 16 mm, range of sensitivity: 4000–2500 Å, resolution better 130 lines/mm *Cartridge capacity: 12m *Stabilization: two-stage, inertial *First stage: three-axis inertial stabilization of station Salyut 1; *Fine guidance: via a star with accuracy 15 arcsec on each axes. *Star sensor: of semi-disk (diameter of input: 70 mm; focal length: 450 mm), limiting stellar magnitude 5m. *Mass: 170 kg

Orion 2

Orion 2 was installed onboard

Soyuz 13 Soyuz 13 (russian: Союз 13, ''Union 13'') was a December, 1973, Soviet crewed space flight, the second test flight of the redesigned Soyuz 7K-T spacecraft that first flew as Soyuz 12. The spacecraft was specially modified to carry the Ori ...

in December 1973, a spacecraft modified to become the first manned space observatory. The observatory was operated by crew member Valentin Lebedev. The designer of the observatory was

, then at

Garni Space Astronomy Laboratory Garni ( hy, Գառնի), is a major village in the Kotayk Province of Armenia. It is known for the nearby classical temple. As of the 2011 census, the population of the village is 6,910. History The settlement has an ancient history, and is b ...

in Armenia. Ultraviolet

spectrograms A spectrogram is a visual representation of the spectrum of frequencies of a signal as it varies with time. When applied to an audio signal, spectrograms are sometimes called sonographs, voiceprints, or voicegrams. When the data are represen ...

of thousands of stars to as faint as 13th stellar magnitude were obtained by a wide-angle meniscus telescope. The first satellite UV spectrogram of a planetary nebula (IC 2149) was obtained, revealing

spectral lines A spectral line is a dark or bright line in an otherwise uniform and continuous spectrum, resulting from emission or absorption of light in a narrow frequency range, compared with the nearby frequencies. Spectral lines are often used to ident ...

of aluminum and titanium - elements not previously observed in planetary nebula.

Two-photon emission Two-photon absorption (TPA or 2PA) or two-photon excitation or non-linear absorption is the simultaneous absorption of two photons of identical or different frequencies in order to excite a molecule from one state (usually the ground state) to a hi ...

in that planetary nebula and a remarkable

star cluster Star clusters are large groups of stars. Two main types of star clusters can be distinguished: globular clusters are tight groups of ten thousand to millions of old stars which are gravitationally bound, while open clusters are more loosely clust ...

Auriga AURIGA (''Antenna Ultracriogenica Risonante per l'Indagine Gravitazionale Astronomica'') is an ultracryogenic resonant bar gravitational wave detector in Italy. It is at the Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro of the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nuclea ...

were also discovered.

Specifications

*Telescope: meniscus,

Cassegrain Cassegrain may refer to * Cassegrain reflector, a design used in telescopes * Cassegrain antenna, a type of parabolic antenna * Cassegrain (crater), on the Moon * a Belgian canned vegetables producer now part of Bonduelle S.A. People : * Guillaume ...

(- Maksutov) system with an objective prism *Primary mirror: 300 mm *Focal length: 1000 mm *Field of view: 5° *Registration of spectrograms: film KODAK 103UV, diameter: 110 mm *Spectral resolution: 8-29 Å at 2000-3000 Å *Two star sensor sets: each containing a two-coordinate star sensor coaxial to telescope and one-coordinate one, in 45° to telescope axis. *Two additional sidereal spectrographs. *Three-axes guidance system accuracy: better than 5 arcsec on two cross-sectional axes of telescope (via star А), and better than 30 arcsec at optical axis (star B) *Star sensors: input apertures: 80 and 60 mm; focal lengths: 500 and 240 mm; limiting stellar magnitudes: 3.5 and 3.0 m. *Mass: 240 kg (telescope: 205 kg) *Mass returned to Earth (cartridges): 4.3 kg

References

;Orion 1 bibliography * * * * *Gurzadyan, G.A., 1972 On One Principle of Operation of Orbital Observatory by a Cosmonaut, ''Commun. Byurakan Obs'', vol.XLV, p. 5. *Gurzadyan, G.A., Harutyunian, E.A., 1972 Orbital Astrophysical Observatory Orion, ''Commun. Byurakan Obs.'', vol.XLV, p. 12. * * * ;Orion 2 bibliography * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *Gurzadyan, G. A., Ultraviolet observations of planetary nebulae, ''Planetary nebulae. Observations and theory, Proc. IAU Symp.76'', Ed.Y.Terzian, p. 79, Dordrecht, D.Reidel Publ., 1978. * *Ambartsumian V.A. (ed) Gurzadyan, G.A.; Raushenbach, B.V.; Feoktistov, K.P.; Klimuk, P.I.; Lebedev, V.V.; Maksimenko, A.P.; Gorshkov, K.A.; Savchenko, S.A.; Baryshnikov, G.K.; Pachomov, A.I.; Antonov, V.V.; Kashin, A.L.; Loretsian, G.M.; Gasparyan, O.N.; Chabrov, G.I.; Ohanesian, J.B.; Tsybin, S.P.; Rustambekova, S.S.; Epremian, R.A. Observatory in space "SOYUZ-13"-"ORION-2" . "''Mashinostroenie" Publ'', Moscow, 1984 (monograph, in Russian). *Gurzadyan G.A, Ohanesyan, J.B., Rustambekova, S.S. & Epremian, R.A., Catalogue of 900 Faint Star Ultraviolet Spectra, ''Publ. Armenian Acad. Sci'', Yerevan, 1985. * * *Furniss, T., Manned Spaceflight Log, ''Jane's,'' London, 1986. *Davies, J. K., Astronomy from Space, ''PRAXIS Publishing'', Chichester, 2002.

External links

Garni Space museum
{{Space observatories 1971 in spaceflight 1973 in spaceflight Soviet space observatories Ultraviolet telescopes Crewed space observatories