Thread by @Chethan_Dash

#Update #Space #Telescope #Debris #Asia

A new telescope facility in the Himalayan range will now keep a watch on the overhead sky to identify transient or variable objects such as #supernovae, #gravitational lenses, #space #debris, and #asteroids. 1/n

Commissioned at Devasthal in Uttarakhand, it'll help survey the sky making it possible to observe #galaxies & other astronomical sources just by staring at the strip of sky that passes overhead. It's the first liquid mirror telescope in India & the largest in Asia. 2/n

Built by astronomers from India, Belgium and Canada, the novel instrument employs a 4m diameter rotating mirror made up of a thin film of liquid mercury to collect and focus light. It’s at an altitude of 2,450m at @ARIESNainital Devasthal observatory campus. 3/n

Scientists from the 3 countries spun a pool of mercury which is a reflective liquid, so that the surface curved into a parabolic shape which is ideal for focusing light. A thin transparent film of mylar protects the mercury from wind, says @IndiaDST 4/n

The reflected light passes through a sophisticated multi-lens optical corrector that produces sharp images over a wide field of view. A large-format electronic camera located at the focus records the images. 5/n

@IndiaDST quoted Prof Paul Hickson (University of British Columbia, Canada), an expert on liquid mirror technology, as having said: “rotation of Earth causes the images to drift across the camera, but this motion is compensated electronically by the camera… 6/n

…This mode of operation increases observing efficiency and makes the telescope particularly sensitive to faint and diffuse objects.” 7/n

“ILMT is the first liquid-mirror telescope designed exclusively for astronomical observations installed at their observatory,” said @ARIESNainital director Prof Dipankar Banerjee, adding the observatory now hosts 2 4m class telescopes – ILMT & Devasthal Optical Telescope… 8/n

…Both are the largest aperture telescopes available in the country. Banerjee is enthusiastic about the application of #bigdata and #AI / #ML algorithms that will be implemented for classifying the objects observed with the ILMT. 9/n

Banerjee said: “I’m hopeful the project will attract and motivate several young minds from scientific and engineering backgrounds to take up challenging problems.” @IndiaDST said the wealth of data generated with the ILMT survey will be exemplary. 10/n

“In the future, young researchers will be working on different science progs utilising ILMT data,” said Kuntal Misra, @ARIESNainital project investigator of ILMT. 11/n

“When regular science ops begin later this year, ILMT will produce about 10GB data every night, which will be quickly analysed to reveal variable & transient stellar sources,” said Brajesh Kumar, @ARIESNainital ILMT project scientist. 12/n

Pic shows observations by ILMT.

The 3.6 metre Devasthal Optical Telescope, with the availability of sophisticated back-end instruments, will allow rapid follow-up observations of the newly-detected transient sources with the adjacent ILMT. 13/n

“Data collected from ILMT will be ideally suited to perform a deep photometric and astrometric variability survey over a period of typically 5yrs,” says project director Prof Jean Surdej (University of Liège, Belgium and University of Poznan, Poland). 14/n

ILMT collaboration includes researchers from @ARIESNainital, University of Liège & Royal Observatory of Belgium, Poznan Observatory in Poland, Ulugh Beg Astronomical Institute of Uzbek Academy of Sciences and Nat’l University of Uzbekistan… 15/n

…University of British Columbia, Laval University, University of Montreal, University of Toronto, York University & University of Victoria. Telescope was designed & built by Advanced Mechanical & Optical Systems (AMOS) Corpn and the Centre Spatial de Liège in Belgium. n/n