Funding
Funding Opportunities:
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Belgo-Indian projects on Precision Astronomical spectroscopy for Stellar and Solar system bodies (BIPASS)
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Belgo-Indian Network for Astronomy & Astrophysics (Part 2) (BINA-2)
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Belgo-Indian Network for Astronomy & Astrophysics (BINA)
- Grants: Mobility grants? (cf. Michaël)
PhD Scholars:
BINA (Belgo-Indian Network for Astronomy & Astrophysics)
Scientific argumentation: (science proposal Belgium; science proposal India)
The 3.6-m DOT has been constructed by AMOS (Liège) with financial support from BELSPO (2,000,000 EUR). Our network that emerged from this collaboration is still expanding and currently involves colleagues from two Belgian and seven Indian institutes (see Appendix Ap1 and Ap2). The scientific exploitation of the observations of solar system, galactic and extragalactic celestial objects that will be obtained with the Indo-Belgian telescopes (3.6-m DOT and 4-m ILMT; Ap3 in Appendix) during the Belgian Guaranteed Time (see above) and beyond (with other telescopes of interest listed in Appendix Ap3) will be more successful if a shared approach with respect to the preparation of observing proposals, procedures of data acquisition as well as scientific goals is defined among the partner-institutes. When coupled to precise questions/problems in the research fields of common interest (e.g. asteroseismology, binaries, massive stars, abundance studies, galaxies , active galactic nuclei, quasars and ground-based support for spatial missions like Gaia, XMM-Newton, Integral that are supported by BELSPO), based on data obtained with a specific instrument, the needs will be addressed in the same way, and this will enhance the necessity of closer collaboration at the scientific level. Currently, a high-resolution spectrograph (PI: Jeewan Pandey) and a CCD fast photometer (PI: Santosh Joshi) are already being developed in India in collaboration with Belgian astronomers and engineers.
Financial support is requested for two types of network activities:
- Workshops
Workshops (one @ARIES/India; one @ROB/Belgium) to summarise and promote scientific collaborative projects that will make use of the Indo-Belgian telescope to encourage the construction of new, dedicated instrumentation in order to make the best use of the 3.6-m DOT. Such meetings are perfect opportunities to allow face-to-face discussions during a few days between partners of already identified collaborative projects. It will strengthen them and will lead to new ones.
- Work visits:
from Indian engineers/scientists to Belgium to enhance the efficiency in the development and commissioning of the scientific instruments for the Indo-Belgian telescopes. Belgian engineers already have a lot of experience in the development of astronomical instruments (e.g. the High Efficiency and Resolution Mercator Echelle Spectrograph; Raskin et al., 2011, A&A 526, A69).
from Belgian astronomers to India to exchange knowledge and expertise in science and technology. Visits to the Indo-Belgian telescopes by Belgian astronomers will lead to a better understanding of their instrumentation, more efficient analysis of the astronomical data and more and better observing proposals.
Principle Investigators:
Peter De Cat (ROB, Brussels, Belgium; Peter.DeCat@oma.be)
Santosh Joshi (ARIES, Nainital, India; santosh@aries.res.in)
Partner institutes
The Names and Partner Institutes change in time, so relevant
Budget: (budget proposal Belgium; budget proposal India)
2 workshops :Contract:
- 29,095.5 EUR for Belgium (2014/12/15-2018/12/15; signed contract Belgium)
- 19,84,600 INR for India (2016/05/05-2019/05/31; signed contract India)
Reports:
- Interim report (Belgium; India)
- Final report (Belgium; India)
BINA-2 (Belgo-Indian Network for Astronomy & Astrophysics) (Part 2) :
The Belgo-Indian Network for Astronomy and astrophysics (BINA) was created to optimize the scientific exploitation of the observations of the solar system, galactic and extragalactic celestial objects gathered with the Indo-Belgian telescopes (DOT: the 3.6-m Devathal Optical Telescope; ILMT: the 4-m International Liquid Mirror Telescope) and the so-called telescopes of interest (those that are accessible for the partner institutes thanks to this collaboration). During this second phase of the project, the focus was shifted from the development of instruments for the DOT to the scientific activities in fields of common interest. Originally, seven science projects were defined: a general one for science with the ILMT and six specific ones for science with the DOT (asteroseismology; gravitational lenses; near-infrared photometry; abundances; high-resolution spectrograph; binaries). Unfortunately, the network activities could only start in 2022 (delay in acceptance of the project in India + COVID-19 pandemic). Moreover, persisting technical issues with the DOT and massive delays in the construction of both the ILMT and the high-resolution spectrograph for the DOT forced us to shift the scientific focus to the use of data from the telescope of interest and/or in publicly available databases. In the course of the project, new collaboration possibilities emerged leading to the definition of two additional science projects (solar system bodies and exoplanetary science; solar physics). Despite these setbacks at the start, BINA-2 turned out to be very productive with more than 60 published joint papers. Now that the term BINA is embedded in the Belgian and Indian astronomical communities, we aim to continue to use it to further stimulate Belgo-Indian collaborations in space sciences.