Astronomers
from India, Belgium and Canada collaborated to build the Liquid Mirror
Telescope to keep a close eye on the overhead sky. The first International
Liquid Mirror Telescope (ILMT) is the country's first liquid mirror telescope
and is the largest in Asia. The one-of-a-kind telescope will scan the sky for
transitory or variable objects like supernovae, gravitational lenses, and
asteroids.
The Indian
Liquid Mirror Telescope will help in surveying the sky, making it possible to
observe several galaxies and other astronomical sources just by staring at the
strip of sky that passes overhead.
India has
successfully commissioned a one-of-a-kind liquid-mirror telescope atop
Devasthal, a hill in Uttarakhand. The International Liquid Mirror Telescope
(ILMT) is the first liquid mirror telescope in the country, and it is known to
be the largest in Asia.
It is located
at an altitude of 2,450 metres at the Devasthal Observatory campus of
Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES), an autonomous
institute under the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of
India in Nainital district, Uttarakhand.
The
International Liquid Mirror Telescope (ILMT) is the only liquid-mirror
telescope operational anywhere in the world. It will also hold the unique tag
of being the maiden liquid-telescope globally to be designed exclusively for
astronomical purposes.
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| The Devasthal Observatory campus in Uttarakhand. ILMT is seen at the bottom left. (Image: ARIES) |
ILMT will be
the third telescope to be operating from Devasthal after the 3.6-metre
Devasthal Optical Telescope (DOT), the largest in India commissioned in 2016
and the 1.3-metre Devasthal Fast Optical Telescope (DFOT) inaugurated in 2010.
This innovative
instrument (ILMT) built by the scientists of the three countries employs a
4-meter-diameter rotating mirror made up of a thin film of liquid mercury to
collect and focus light. The liquid mirror telescope coated with mercury is
much cheaper than a normal telescope.
Paul Hickson
from the University of British Columbia, Canada, an expert on liquid mirror
technology, said, "The rotation of the earth causes the images to drift
across the camera, but this motion is compensated electronically by the camera.
This mode of operation increases observing efficiency and makes the telescope
particularly sensitive to faint and diffuse objects."
"ILMT is
the first liquid-mirror telescope designed exclusively for astronomical
observations installed at the Devasthal Observatory of ARIES," said
Dipankar Banerjee, Director, ARIES.
Devasthal
Observatory now hosts two four-meter class telescopes - the ILMT and the
Devasthal Optical Telescope (DOT).
The telescope
was designed and built by the Advanced Mechanical and Optical Systems (AMOS)
Corporation and the Centre Spatial de Liege in Belgium.
"Only a
handful of liquid-mirror telescopes have been previously built but were majorly
used either for tracking satellites or for military purposes"- said Dr
Kuntal Misra, project investigator of ILMT at ARIES.
“Unlike the
conventional telescopes that can be steered to track specific stellar source
objects, the ILMT will be stationary. It will basically carry out observations
and imaging at the zenith, that is, of the overhead sky. This is a survey
telescope having high potential for discovering newer objects,” Misra said.
The ILMT
collaboration includes researchers from ARIES in India, the University of Liege
and the Royal Observatory of Belgium in Belgium, Poznan Observatory in Poland,
Ulugh Beg Astronomical Institute in Uzbek, Academy of Sciences and National
University of Uzbekistan, University of British Columbia, Laval University,
University of Montreal, University of Toronto, York University and University
of Victoria, all in Canada.
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