Open House Bosscha Presented Edutourism for Academics of ITB

November 12, 2017 - ( update : 30-11-2017 )

By Abdiel Jeremi W

Editor Abdiel Jeremi W

BANDUNG, itb.ac.id – Bosscha Observatory (Bosscha) has been built even before World War II, in 1928 to be precise. In 1959, this astronomical facility in Lembang became a part of ITB history. Thenceforth, Bosscha operates as formal education and astronomical research facility. On Saturday (11/11/17), Bosscha held an open house for ITB academic members. Students, lecturers, or staffs and their families could enjoy Lembang’s fresh air while gaining knowledge about Bosscha or astronomy. The open house was held in commemoration of 70th year FMIPA ITB. Because it was held at noon, several telescopes equipped with certain filters were operated to observe the sun.

Enjoying historical Telescopes in Bosscha

Bosscha is the home to the biggest telescopes in Indonesia. One of them is Zeiss Double Refractor or commonly known as ‘Zeiss Telescope’. This telescope was installed in 1928 on the one and only domed building in Bosscha. Because of its unique and iconic building shape, Zeiss Telescope attracts many visitors, one of them is Theofilus Hobba Pramono (FMIPA 2017). “Of all the telescopes I visited, I think Zeiss Telescope is the coolest because the building has good shape,” said Theofilus. Now, Zeiss is still operating to observe star spectrum with the help of spectrograph and astronomy CCD camera.

Besides Zeiss, visitors could observe the sun using portable telescopes installed in front of Zeiss domed building. Through these portable telescopes, visitors could observe the sun disk wholly. Visitors could also see small part of the sun more precisely using Bamberg telescope. Besides Zeiss, portable, and Bamberg telescopes, visitors could also come to STEVia and GAO-ITB Robotic Telescope System (RTS).

A Complete Edutourism

As a part of ITB, Bosscha aims to give education to visitors. There visitors could grasp general knowledge about astronomy in Multimedia Room. Moreover, information about the sun and solar system is acquirable in Surya telescope building. It is notable that every visitor could acquire information about historical astronomic instruments owned by Bosscha in Museum Room. Those instruments include sensitometer, astrophotometer, sextant, micrometer, etc. The open house lasted until 15.00. The next part of 70th Years of FMIPA series is “Sains and Matematika untuk Bangsa” and was held on Friday (17/11/17) at Aula Timur ITB.