![15-inch telescope seen from the 40-inch telescope at Vainu Bappu Observatory](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/15-inch_telescope_seen_from_the_40-inch_telescope_at_Vainu_Bappu_Observatory.JPG)
The Vainu Bappu Observatory is an
astronomical
Astronomy () is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, nebulae, galaxi ...
observatory owned and operated by the
Indian Institute of Astrophysics
The Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), with its headquarters in Bengaluru,is an autonomous Research Institute wholly financed by the department of Science and Technology, Government of India. IIA conducts research primarily in the areas of ...
. It is located at
Kavalur
Kavalur is a village in the Jawadhu Hills in Vaniyambadi taluk, Tamil Nadu, India. The village hosts the Vainu Bappu Observatory (VBO), which was established in the 1970s, and contains the Carl Zeiss Telescope, and the Vainu Bappu telescope. ...
in the
Javadi Hills
The Javadhu Hills (also Jawadhi, Jawadhu Hills) ( Rainfall clouds producing Hills For North Tamilnadu) ( Ooty of Vellore and Tirupattur ) are an extension of the Eastern Ghats spread across parts of Tirupattur (earlier part of Vellore District) ...
, near
Vaniyambadi
Vaniyambadi () is a town in the Tirupattur district of Tamil Nadu and the headquarter for the Vaniyambadi Revenue district comprising Vaniyambadi and Ambur. It is located about 200 km from Chennai and 178 kilometer from Bengaluru. The Van ...
in
Tirupathur district
Tirupattur district, or Tirupathur district, is one of the 38 districts in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The district was formed in 2019 by the division of Vellore district into three smaller districts. Its creation alongside Ranipet ...
in the Indian state of
Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a state in southern India. It is the tenth largest Indian state by area and the sixth largest by population. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu is the home of the Tamil people, whose Tamil language ...
. It is 200 km south-west of
Chennai
Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...
and 175 km south-east of
Bangalore
Bangalore (), List of renamed places in India, officially Bengaluru (), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan area, metropolitan population of a ...
.
History
The Vainu Bappu Observatory of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics traces its origin back to 1786 when
William Petrie set up his private observatory at his garden house at Egmore, Madras, which eventually came to be known as the Madras Observatory. Later it was moved to Kodaikanal and functioned there as the
Kodaikanal Observatory since 1899.
However, Kodaikanal had very few nights available for observation and hence astronomers searched for a new site after India's independence.
M.K. Vainu Bappu who took over as the director of the Kodaikanal Observatory in 1960, found a sleepy little hamlet called Kavalur in the Javadi Hills as a suitable site for establishing optical telescopes for observing celestial objects. This came to be known as Kavalur Observatory.
Observations began in 1968 with a 38 cm telescope made in the backyard of the Kodaikanal Observatory.
Location
Kavalur observatory is located in Kavalur in the Javadi Hills in Alangayam. The Kavalur Observatory is located in a 40-hectare forest land in Tamil Nadu which is strewn with a variety of greenery of tropical region besides a number of medicinal plants with an occasional appearance of some wildlife like deer, snakes and scorpions. Several varieties of birds have also been spotted in the campus. The observatory is at an altitude of 725m above mean sea level (longitude 78° 49.6' E ; latitude 12° 34.6' N). Apart from being reasonably away from city lights and industrial areas, the location has been chosen in order to be closer to the earth's equator for covering both northern and southern hemispheres with equal ease. In addition, its longitudinal position is such that it is the only major astronomical facility between Australia and South Africa for observing the southern objects.
Initial setup
The first telescope was of 38 cm (15-inch) aperture, with which astronomical observations were started in 1968 at Kavalur Observatory. The 75 cm (30-inch) telescope has been completely designed and fabricated at the workshops of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics. In 1972 a 1-metre (40-inch) telescope made by Carl Zeiss Jena was installed at Kavalur.
2.3-metre Vainu Bappu Telescope
Vainu Bappu started the 2.3-metre (93-inch) aperture telescope, designed and built within the country. Bappu died in 1982 and would not see the completion of the telescope.
On 6 January 1986, the observatory was renamed as Vainu Bappu Observatory and the 2.3-metre telescope as Vainu Bappu Telescope.
The telescope is so powerful that it can easily resolve a 25 paise coin kept forty kilometres away. Deep sky observations are carried out with this telescope using a variety of focal plane instruments. The equatorially mounted horse-shoe-yoke structure of the telescope is ideally suited for low latitudes and permits easy observation near the north celestial pole. The telescope has a F/3.25 paraboloid primary of 2.3 m diameter with the prime focus image scale of 27 arcsec/mm and a Cassegrain focus image scale of 6.7 arcsec/mm. This telescope has been operated as a national facility and attracts proposals from all over the country and sometimes from outside India.
Equipment
The observatory is home to the Vainu Bappu Telescope, the largest telescope in Asia until a 3.6-meter telescope was set up at Devasthal, Nainital, by ARIES. It has a diameter of 2.3 meters and was first used in 1986. Along with the Vainu Bappu telescope, the observatory has two other telescopes: A 1-meter Zeiss manufactured and another 75-centimeter Cassegrain reflector currently being refurbished. The observatory also has a
Fabry–Pérot interferometer.
* Technical details
** Primary mirror diameter: 234 cm
** Prime focus: f/3.25 with a scale of 27".1/mm
** Cassegrain focus: f/13 with a scale of 6".8/mm
** Guiding: remote, manual guiding
* Instruments available
** At PRIME focus:
*** Imaging camera with a 3-element Wynne corrector
*** High-resolution Echelle spectrograph
* Detector
** 4096×4096 pixels TEK CCD, with a pixel size of 12 micrometres
** At CASSEGRAIN focus:
*** Medium-resolution
spectropolarimeter
Polarimetry is the measurement and interpretation of the polarization of transverse waves, most notably electromagnetic waves, such as radio or light waves. Typically polarimetry is done on electromagnetic waves that have traveled through or ha ...
*** Medium-resolution Optometrics Research spectrograph (OMRS)
* Detector
** 1024×1024 pixels TEK CCD, with a pixel size of 24 micrometres
Discoveries
The 1-metre telescope is associated with two unique discoveries in the solar system. In 1972, atmosphere was detected around
Jupiter
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousandth t ...
's satellite
Ganymede and in the year 1977, participated in the observations that confirmed rings were discovered around the planet
Uranus
Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. Its name is a reference to the Greek god of the sky, Uranus ( Caelus), who, according to Greek mythology, was the great-grandfather of Ares (Mars), grandfather of Zeus (Jupiter) and father of ...
. In 1984, Kavalur reported the discovery of a thin outer
ring
Ring may refer to:
* Ring (jewellery), a round band, usually made of metal, worn as ornamental jewelry
* To make a sound with a bell, and the sound made by a bell
:(hence) to initiate a telephone connection
Arts, entertainment and media Film and ...
around
Saturn.
On 17 February 1988, a new minor planet was discovered using the 45 cm
Schmidt telescope
Schmidt may refer to:
* Schmidt (surname), including list of people with the surname
* Schmidt (singer) (born 1990), German pop and jazz singer
* Schmidt (lunar crater), a small lunar impact crater
* Schmidt (Martian crater), a crater on Mars
* ...
. It has been named
4130 Ramanujan
__NOTOC__
Year 413 ( CDXIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Herclianus and Lucius (or, less frequently, year 1166 ...
after the Indian mathematical genius
Srinivasa Ramanujan. This is the first such discovery from
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
in the 20th century.
Scientific activities
Front-line research is being carried out with the help of the optical telescopes at Vainu Bappu Observatory using several focal plane instrumentational facilities. The ongoing programmes include observations of
stars,
star clusters,
novae,
supernovae,
blazars
A blazar is an active galactic nucleus (AGN) with a Astrophysical jet, relativistic jet (a jet composed of Plasma (physics), ionized matter traveling at nearly the speed of light) directed very nearly towards an observer. Relativistic beaming of ...
,
galaxies, optical imaging of
gamma-ray
A gamma ray, also known as gamma radiation (symbol γ or \gamma), is a penetrating form of electromagnetic radiation arising from the radioactive decay of atomic nuclei. It consists of the shortest wavelength electromagnetic waves, typically sh ...
burst fields, stellar populations, solar system objects and many others.
The telescopes at the observatory had started with relatively modest
focal plane instruments and later on graduated to more sophisticated ones. These include cameras for fast photography,
photoelectric
The photoelectric effect is the emission of electrons when electromagnetic radiation, such as light, hits a material. Electrons emitted in this manner are called photoelectrons. The phenomenon is studied in condensed matter physics, and solid sta ...
photometer
A photometer is an instrument that measures the strength of electromagnetic radiation in the range from ultraviolet to infrared and including the visible spectrum. Most photometers convert light into an electric current using a photoresistor, ...
s, a single-channel photoelectric spectrum scanner, a medium resolution
spectrograph, a
quartz-prism calibration spectrograph,
infrared
Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is generally understood to encompass wavelengths from around ...
photometer, image tube spectrograph, a Universal Astronomical Grating Spectrograph (UAGS from
Zeiss), high-resolution echelle spectrograph and a
polarimeter. Photographic plates were the principal detectors in the early days. Presently the
charge-coupled device
A charge-coupled device (CCD) is an integrated circuit containing an array of linked, or coupled, capacitors. Under the control of an external circuit, each capacitor can transfer its electric charge to a neighboring capacitor. CCD sensors are a ...
s (CCD) have replaced the photographic plates. Some micro-processor-controlled photon counting systems were designed and fabricated which have been used in a variety of observational projects. A fibre linked echelle spectrograph is under construction.
On campus maintenance facilities like aluminising plants for coating the telescope mirrors, mechanical and electrical workshops, electronics labs, along with a
liquid nitrogen plant are at hand for the smooth functioning of the observatory. Highly advanced technical facilities like SUN workstations are available at the telescopes for handling the CCD data, along with specialised data reduction packages such as IRAF, STSDAS and DAOPHOT. Communication facilities, like e-mail via VSAT satellite connection, are available for all users for the telescopes.
A programme of ultraflow dispersion spectroscopy was successfully used to survey stars in the
Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). Of the ten supernovae observed so far, SN1987A in LMC was observed in great detail using the 1 m and the 75 cm telescopes despite its low elevation in the southern sky, proving the worth of the geographic location of Kavalur. In fact the observations of the supernova were started within 48 hours of the discovery.
Observational studies of evolved stars, in particular studies related to their evolutionary aspects, carried out at this observatory, have received critical acclaim and international recognition. The observational facilities at this Observatory have yielded many PhD theses for the scholars of the Institute as well as of other institutes and universities in the country.
See also
*
List of astronomical observatories
This is a list of astronomical observatories ordered by name, along with initial dates of operation (where an accurate date is available) and location. The list also includes a final year of operation for many observatories that are no longer in ...
*
Nizamia observatory
References
External links
The Vainu Bappu Observatory
{{Portal bar, India, Astronomy, Stars, Spaceflight, Outer space, Solar System, Education, Science
Astronomical observatories in Tamil Nadu
Tirupathur district
Indian Institute of Astrophysics
Tourist attractions in Vellore