What's New

Asia’s largest 4-metre International Liquid Mirror Telescope

News: The Union Minister of Science & Technology inaugurated Asia’s largest 4-metre International Liquid Mirror Telescope at Devasthal in Uttarakhand.

The International Liquid Mirror Telescope is India’s first optical survey telescope and the first liquid mirror telescope created specifically for astronomical investigations.

It collects and concentrates light using a revolving mirror with a 4-meter diameter consisting of a thin layer of liquid mercury.

The highly reflecting liquid form of the metal mercury, which is at room temperature, is intended for surveying the strip of sky that passes directly overhead each evening.

The Devasthal observatory has India’s largest aperture telescope, which will classify celestial objects using Big Data and Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML) algorithms.

A bowl containing a reflecting liquid mercury metal, an air bearing (or motor) on which the liquid mirror rests, and a drive mechanism make up the telescope.

A thin, transparent mylar layer of scientific grade shields the mercury from the wind.

A complex multi-lens optical corrector processes the reflected light to provide sharp images over a large field of view, and a 4k CCD camera, positioned above the mirror at the focus, captures 22 arc-minute wide strips of the sky.

Deep photometric and astrometric variability surveys can be carried out with the use of the ILMT data that will have been gathered over its five-year operational period.

The Aryabhata Research Institute of Observational Sciences looks after it. (ARIES).