The Development of Solar Astronomy in Malaysia

Abstract

Monitoring the Sun reveals a variety of fascinating and complex physical phenomena which are being studied mainly by analyzing its emission. Solar activity has an impact with space weather. The characteristic features of the climate of Malaysia are uniform temperature, very high humidity and copious rainfall. It has an average of temperature of 26.7 °C. Therefore, it is suitable to monitor the Sun. In following work, we will emphasize the development of solar astronomy in Malaysia. The ground based observation (i) optical and (ii) radio are the main region that we focused on. Optical observation has started earlier comparing with radio observation. In optical region it covers from 400 – 700 nm while in radio region, we focus from 45 MHz to 870 MHz. The number of observatories is increasing. A dedicated work to understand the Sun activity in radio region is a part of an initiative of the United Nations together with NASA in order to support developing countries participating in „Western Science‟ research. Realize how important for us to keep doing a research about the solar bursts, by using the new radio spectrometer, CALLISTO (Compound Low Cost Low Frequency Transportable Observatories) spectrometer. Malaysia is one of the earliest country from South-East Asia (ASEAN) that involve this research. One of the advantages to start the solar monitoring in Malaysia is because our strategic location as equator country that makes possible to observing a Sun for 12 hours daily throughout a year. We strongly believe that Malaysia as one of contributor of solar activity data through E-CALLISTO network. This is a very good start for developing a radio astronomy in Malaysia. With the implementation of 45 MHz - 870 MHz CALLISTO systems and development of solar burst monitoring network, a new wavelength regime is becoming available for solar radio astronomy. Overall, this article presents an overview of optical and radio astronomy in Malaysia. With the present level of the international collaboration, it is believed that the potential involvement of local and international scientist in solar astrophysics will increase.