5 min readPuneOct 26, 2022 01:33 PM IST
First published on: Oct 17, 2022 at 09:54 AM IST
In the 1980s, the Sampurnanand telescope had contributed to the discovery of two rings around Saturn, one of which was newly identified then. It had also helped in the detection of rings around Uranus and the ring of Neptune was discovered independently using this facility.
The list of accomplishments of this 104-cm or one-metre-class optical telescope in Uttarakhand—built and the oldest to be operational in independent India—is long, as it marks its golden jubilee year in 2022.
Photographic plates coated with light-sensitive emulsions were used before the CCDs were installed in 1989. (Source: ARIES)
Located on the Manora peak (1,951 metres above mean sea level) to the southwest of Nainital, the telescope gets its name after Dr Sampurnanand, educationist and former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. It was installed and commissioned in 1972 at the then Uttar Pradesh State Observatory (UPSO). In 2004, UPSO was renamed to the present-day Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES), functional under the Department of Science and Technology.
To celebrate the 50-years of doing science using Sampurnanand, ARIES will host a three-day workshop titled ‘Role of metre-class telescopes in modern day Astronomy’ starting Monday.
Three identical telescopes were installed each at Kavalur in Karnataka, at the Osmania University in Hyderabad, and in Nainital around the same time. “But it is only the Sampurnanand telescope that continues to operate and produce science even today,” shared Professor Dipankar Banerjee, director, ARIES.
The dome of the 104 cm telescope under construction. (Source: ARIES)
Since its inception, this facility has remained one of the most reliable optical telescopes in India to carry out sky scanning for continuous observations of galaxies, star clusters, Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs), star-forming regions, Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN) and more.
From humble beginnings when the observations were recorded onto photographic plates coated with light-sensitive emulsion and equipped with a Cassegrain plate holder, Meinel camera and photoelectric photometer, this telescope leap-jumped into the digital era just in about time. In 1989, the facility was upgraded with Charged Coupled Devices (CCD) which significantly increased the telescope’s ability to peer into the undiscovered corners of the sky.
“When CCDs arrived, it allowed scientists to take observations much deeper into the sky. We could observe fainter celestial objects and measure their brightness with greater accuracy, which was a limitation while using photographic plates. When the telescope was upgraded with powerful computational facilities, its usefulness increased manifold,” Shashi Bhushan Pandey, senior ARIES scientist and one of the users of the Sampurnanand telescope told The Indian Express. His is among the 45 doctoral theses submitted from this telescope’s observations.
With improved computational support, Sampurnanand today generates about 50 to 100 Gigabytes (GB) of data per night of observations. Except during the monsoon season when they are safely parked, all telescopes owned by ARIES are operational around the year. This pristine site enjoys 200 days of clear sky viewing in a calendar year.
Apart from the discovery of the planet rings, this telescope facilitated Indian astronomers to undertake the first photo-electric observations of stars and the occultation of a star by a minor planet. It participated in the Nainital-Cape sky survey—one of the longest and unique ground-based sky surveys initiated from both the northern and southern hemispheres—to discover quakes in about six stars. It was also the first to detect optical afterglows of GRBs.
In the past five decades, the Sampurnanand telescope has been a witness to sea changes in electronics, instrumentation, computational powers and astronomy and produced over 350 research publications.
Being 50 years old, the telescope needs careful handling, ARIES officials said.
“We have an expert team of technical staff, who take additional care in maintaining the ageing facility. As many components are now old, they now need replacement. The facility will need a new spectrograph, which will open avenues to observing stars in multiple spectra and help identify their elements,” said another ARIES scientist, who did not wish to be identified.
Astronomer and emeritus scientist Professor Ajit Kembhavi recalled his brief association with the Sampurnanand telescope and visits to the Manora peak for taking galaxy observations, nearly two decades ago. “The telescope can still be used to observe bright galaxies, for running dedicated observation programmes, sky surveys and more,” said Kembhavi, former director, Inter University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA).
It may be half a century old, but ARIES is constantly looking out for keeping the facility alive for more years in future. Officials said further plans to upgrade and phase out all existing manual telescope functions by switching to using software in near
The 104-cm Sampurnanand telescope is located on Manora peak, Nainital in Uttarakhand. (Source: ARIES) 
Photographic plates coated with light-sensitive emulsions were used before the CCDs were installed in 1989. (Source: ARIES)
The dome of the 104 cm telescope under construction. (Source: ARIES)
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