India's first International Liquid Mirror Telescope (ILMT) came up

Highlights:

• India’s first liquid mirror telescope first came to light in early 2022. 
• This telescope will observe asteroid, space debris, supernovae, and all other celestial objects from an altitude of 2,450 metres in Uttarakhand.
• It is world’s first liquid-mirror telescope, that was commissioned for astronomy. 
• Other liquid-telescopes were previously built either to track satellites or were used for military purposes.

• 'International Liquid-Mirror Telescope (ILMT) was set up at the Devasthal Observatory campus, which is owned by Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES), Nainital in Uttarakhand.
• ILMT will be the third telescope facility at Devasthal,that has become world’s pristine sites for obtaining astronomical observations.
• It is noted that ILMT is set to commence its full-scale scientific operations in October 2022. 
• It will work along with 3.6-metre Devasthal Optical Telescope (DOT), which is India’s largest telescopes in operation.
• Liquid-mirror telescopes are stationary telescopes which is used to image a strip of the sky at a given point of time at night as opposed to the conventional telescope which is steered to point towards celestial source of interest in sky for observations. 
• The liquid-mirror telescope will survey and capture all possible celestial objects ranging from stars, galaxies, asteroids, supernovae explosions to space debris.
• Conventional telescopes comprise of highly polished glass mirrors, either single or a combination of curved ones. 
• These glasses are steered in a controlled fashion to focus on targeted celestial object on specific nights. This light is then reflected to create images. 
• While the liquid-telescope is made up of mirrors with reflective liquid. In ILMT, mercury has been used as reflective liquid.
• Conventional telescopes help in observing specific stellar sources for fixed hours in accordance with study requirement and time allotted by respective telescope time allotment committee. 
• While, ILMT will help in capturing images of sky on all nights between two successive twilights.

• India, Canada, Belgium, Poland and Uzbekistan are the main countries to collaborate on setting up the ILMT.  
• It was designed and built at Advanced Mechanical and Optical Systems Corporation and Centre Spatial de Liège in Belgium.