Page 44 - CTB-1

44 PIONEERING A NEW FUTURE
L-R: Thermo Vacuum Chamber for space payloads at MGK Menon Space Lab-CREST, Hoskote
Tunnel Telescope at Solar Observatory, Kodaikanal
A view of some of the antennas in the Gauribidanur Radioheliograph (GRAPH)
2m-Himalayan Chandra Telescope, IAO, Hanle-Ladakh
Below: Transit Circle designed by Sir George Airy in 1850
spectroscopy and imaging. A new high-resolution spectrograph (HESP) was commissioned for use
at HCT, enabling a new range of high-resolution spectroscopic investigations. A 70cm wide-field robotic telescope was commissioned at IAO, Hanle, during 2017 for monitoring transients under the GROWTH project with IIT, Mumbai. IAO also hosts several site monitoring instruments such as seeing monitor, extinction monitor, all-sky camera, and automated weather station. The site is being characterized for a 10m class telescope.
IIA, in collaboration with the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai, set up a high altitude gamma-ray array (HAGAR) at IAO, Hanle, during 2006. The facility is designed to study gamma rays emitted by quasars, pulsars, supernova remnants, gamma-ray burst sources
using the Atmospheric Cerenkov Technique.
The telescopes were designed in IIA while
the focal plane instruments were designed and developed by TIFR. Similar to it, a single dish 21-m diameter reflector, Major Atmospheric Cherenkov Experiment (MACE) by BARC, Mumbai, is scheduled to be commissioned at IAO, Hanle, during the summer of the year 2021. The Hanle site also hosts a few instruments to study the earth’s atmosphere, as well as the GPS-based seismology
study to understand the plate tectonics in the Indian subcontinent.
National Large Solar Telescope, Ladakh: This project started in 2006 by taking into account the primary solar observatory site conditions for a 2m class solar telescope. The mountain lake site Merak at the Pangong Tso area in Ladakh
is one of the promising world-class sites for a
large solar facility. Along with a number of site characterization equipments, a new H-alpha telescope is operational at Merak, Ladakh, to study the solar chromosphere.
CREST Campus, Hoskote: Situated 35km to
the northeast of Bangalore, near Hoskote town,
is a sprawling 40-acre campus of the Centre
for Research and Education in Science and Technology (CREST). The campus houses control room facilities for remote operations of the 2m Himalayan Chandra Telescope (HCT) at the Indian Astronomical Observatory, Hanle, and
the HCT data archive. MGK Menon Laboratory for Space Sciences, is in operation here, with all critical facilities for integration, characterization, and calibration of space optics, contamination monitoring, test, and calibration of space payloads,