Asia’s Largest Optical Telescope

Astronomy Digital Picture – 1/60 seconds, ISO 400, 6.3mm f/2.8, on 28 Oct 2006 5:54PM, Kavalur.

12 Jan 2007

VAINU BAPPU TELESCOPE, located at Kavalur observatory in the Javadi Hills in Alangayam, Vellore District. Its 2.3 metre aperture makes it Asia’s largest optical telescope, it was designed and built in India.

The telescope is so powerful that it can easily resolve a 25 paise coin kept forty kilometres away.

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.

The ongoing programmes include observations of stars, star clusters, novae, supernovae, blazars, galaxies, optical imaging of gamma-ray burst fields, stellar populations, solar system objects and many others.

Open to public on all saturdays.

Tomorrow’s picture – Ursa Major (Saptarshi Mandala)