Wedding parties spoil astrophysicists' mission

A bunch of scientists at Mount Abu often set out from their laboratory at night, looking for marriage parties. They carry an unusual request for the hosts of these events.

The researchers ask the organisers to switch off the lights so that the telescope atop the hill can collect faint cosmic signals coming from distant universe.

For many years, the scholars at Gurushikhar Observatory for Astrophysical Sciences, Mt Abu, have been encountering the problem of excess background light. Beaming of light by hotels adversely affects their scientific observation and the situation worsens during marriage seasons.

The observatory under the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Mumbai, operates a Cherenkov telescope named TACTIC that observes the gamma ray sources coming from deep inside the universe. It was Asia’s first such instrument installed in 1997.

Upgraded in 2011, the instrument is still being used by the astrophysicists. The observatory also has a 14-inch optical telescope to monitor the sky simultaneously.

The sky-watchers require moonless dark nights for their job, but rapid growth of hotels and residential complexes all around the observatory turns to be a big problem because of the “light pollution”. The situation turns worse during the marriage season. The scientists, in the middle of the night, have to go personally to tell the people to switch off their lights so that the scientific observations can be carried out.

When a group of lawmakers visited the observatory a few months ago, the researchers narrated their plight.

In their report, the parliamentarians suggested that the ministry of urban development and environment be brought into the picture to find a solution.

The researchers, however, are not hopeful of a solution as the department plans to shift its gamma ray observation to Hanle in Ladakh, leaving the Mt Abu observatory for training and other academic activities.

The Department of Atomic Energy is setting up the MACE (Major Atmospheric Cherenkov Experiment) telescope, which is scheduled to be commissioned later this year. Once operational, the 21-metre diameter MACE telescope would be the world’s highest altitude gamma ray observatory, opening up a new window to look at the universe.

But for the bunch at Mt Abu, the agony is likely to continue for several more months with BARC sources telling DH that the Hanle telescope was unlikely to be commissioned in 2017 as several works on instrumentation were still pending.