India gets Asia's first largest Liquid Mirror Telescope 

India has set up its first liquid-mirror telescope in Uttarakhand to observe asteroids, supernovae, space debris and all other celestial objects from an altitude of 2,450 metres in the Himalayas, has seen its first light. It has now entered the commissioning phase and will start scientific observations some time in October this year.

The International Liquid Mirror Telescope (ILMT) is the only liquid-mirror telescope in operation anywhere in the world, and it is located on the site of the Devasthal Observatory of the Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES) in Nainital. It will also have the distinction of being the world's first liquid-telescope constructed solely for astronomical purposes.

“Devasthal is considered as one of the best sites for astronomical observations,” Professor Dipankar Banerjee, director of ARIES, said on Thursday.

The telescope was designed and built at the Advanced Mechanical and Optical Systems Corporation and the Centre Spatial de Liege, Belgium. The major instrumentation funding was jointly provided by Canada and Belgium while India will be responsible for the operations and upkeep of the telescope.

Only a few liquid-mirror telescopes have been made before, and they were mostly used for tracking satellites or for military objectives, according to Dr Kuntal Misra, ILMT project investigator 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.