The IIA, which currently functions under India's Department of Science and Technology (DST), was founded in 1786 when William Petrie, an enlightened official of the East India Company, set up a small private observatory in his garden house in Madras (now Chennai). Significantly, this observatory provided a reference meridian for the survey of the treacherous Coromandal coast.
In 1790, it was taken over by the East India Company and improved upon and augmented. Two years later, it was shifted to a newly built observatory building at Nugambakkam, a suburb of Madras, where it became the first modern public observatory outside Europe.
In 1830 the observatory managed to acquire a 5-foot focus transit instrument and a 4-foot diameter mural circle. Using these instruments, Thomas Glanville Taylor prepared his celebrated Madras Catalogue, which listed the positions of 11,015 stars.
The year 1850 was a major watershed in the history of observatory, as it obtained its first fixed telescope, a 6-inch aperture equatorial telescope supplied by Lerebours and Secretan of Paris. Fourteen years later, the observatory acquired an 8-inch aperture equatorial telescope from London.
Both these telescopes helped Norman Robert Pogson discover five minor planets and six variable stars. Pogson's assistant Chintamani Ragoonathachary discovered a variable star R.Reticuli in 1867 -- the first recorded astronomical discovery by an Indian in modern times.
Significantly, the Madras Observatory monitored and studied the 1868 and 1871 total solar eclipses, as well as annular eclipse of June 6, 1872. In 1899, a solar physics observatory was set up at Kodaikanal with the view to study the sun and predict the behavior of the monsoons.
Into the Twentieth Century
Solar photography and spectroscopy continued to be the mainstay of Kodiakanal Observatory with an occasional comet or nova breaking the monotony. In 1958, as part of the International Geophysical Year celebrations, the observatory acquired a 15-inch aperture solar tunnel telescope for the fine spectroscopic work.
In 1960, the renowned Indian astrophysicist Dr. Vainu Bappu took over as the Director of Kodaikanal Observatory. Incidentally, Bappu was instrumental in developing Kavalur as a major astrophysical research facility in India. The Kavalaur observatory (now known as Vainu Bappu Observatory) boasts a 1-meter Zeiss telescope as well as fully Indian-made 38-inch and 2.3-meter aperture telescopes.
The 2.3-meter telescope (also named for Bappu) has made significant contributions to the study of galactic dynamics and stellar physics.
In 1971, the Kodaikanal Observatory was renamed the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) and 1976 was shifted to Bangalore. Today its astronomical and astrophysical research is focused on studies of the sun and solar system objects as well as distant galaxies and quasars.
While studies of solar activities include sunspots, plages, prominences and solar chromosphere, solar system object study focuses on comets, planetary atmospheres and asteroid orbits.
In the area of stellar physics, IIA's research has made significant contribution to the study of birth sites of stars, their early, late and post-AGB phases and stellar atmospheres.
IIA also has a long tradition of research in star clusters in out galaxy as well as nova and supernova explosions. Research in the extra-galactic astronomy covers nearby galaxies to the distant quasars. Similarly, IIA has been active in pursuing research into the phenomenon of gamma-ray bursts in collaboration with several national and international observatories.
Magnetohydrodynamic studies of the sun, radiative process in the astrophysical objects, structure of the neutron stars, black hole physics, the structure and dynamics of galaxies and star clusters, origin of ultra high energy cosmic rays and dark matter physics form a part of the theoretical astrophysics research at IIA.
In addition to research facilities at its Bangalore headquarters, IIA derives support from its units at Kodaikanal, Kavalur, Gauribidanur, Hoskote and Hanle. A decameter radio telescope located at Gauribidanur -- built by IIA in association with the Raman Research Institute and commissioned in 1976 -- is used extensively for solar studies, including the detection of radio emissions from objects ranging from hot solar coronas to tiny pulsars. A laboratory for experiments in gravitational physics is also situated at Gauribidanur.
Incidentally, the IIA and Raman Research Institute have helped the University of Mauritius to build a T-shaped meter wave radio telescope at Bras D'eau in northeast Mauritius. It is being used extensively to map radio emissions from regions around the center and southern parts of our galaxy.
Running The World's Higest Observatory
At Hoskote, near Bangalore, one finds the facility for the remote operations of 2-meter optical infrared telescope at Hanle in the high altitude Himalayan region. This remote control facility works through India's INSAT domestic communications spacecraft.
In addition to its unique situation 14,763 feet (4,500 meters) high in the western Himalayas, low sky brightness, low atmospheric absorption and low atmospheric turbulence makes Indian Astronomical Observatory (IAO) at Hanle unique in the world. The 2-meter optical telescope of IAO enables the continuous studies covering half the globe, from the Canary Islands (20 degrees west longitude) to Eastern Australia at (157 degrees east Longitude).
The Hanle telescope was designed by IIA scientists in association with EOS Technologies of Tucson, Arizona. The telescope has Ritchey Chretien optics and an altazimuth mount. The mirror of the telescope is made of special low expansion ceramic which can withstand extremes of the climatic conditions.
This telescope is expected to provide high-quality data that would lead researchers to study in greater depth diverse problems relating to various aspects of stars and stellar systems. They include star forming regions in remote galaxies, supernovae, high redshift radio galaxies, gamma ray burst sources, large scale structure of the universe and cosmology.
On another front, the IIA and McDonnell Center for Space Sciences of Washington University have set up an Antipodal Transient Observatory with two telescopes of 0.5-m aperture each, one at Hanle and the other at Arizona, nearly 180 degrees apart in longitude to monitor active galactic nuclei.
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