- The Himalayan Chandra Telescope of Indian Astronomical Observatory located in Hanle of Ladakh has joined hands with 10 other global telescopes to observe the brightening of BL Lacertae (BL Lac), a blazar located about 950 million light years away from Earth.
ABOUT HIMALAYAN CHANDRA TELESCOPE
- It is a 2 meter optical-infrared telescope named after Nobel laureate Subramaniam Chandrasekhar.
- It is situated at the Indian Astronomical Observatory (IAO) in Hanle near Leh in Ladakh.
- It is currently the tenth highest optical telescope in the world.
- The telescope remotely operated using a dedicated satellite communication link from the Centre for Research & Education in Science & Technology (CREST), Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), Bangalore.
- Imaging instruments include a Faint Object Spectrograph, a near infra-red and an optical CCD camera
ABOUT INDIAN ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATORY
- Indian Astronomical Observatory is situated at an altitude of 4500 meters atop Mt. Saraswati in the vast Nilamkhul Plain in the Hanle Valley of Changthang.
- Other major telescopes at IAO, Hanle site (except Himalayan Chandra Telescope):
- GROWTH-India Telescope: It is the country’s first fully robotic research telescope.
- High Altitude Gamma Ray Telescope (HAGAR): It is an atmospheric Cerenkov experiment with 7 telescopes setup in 2008.