The 4m International Liquid Mirror Telescope project
Abstract
The International Liquid Mirror Telescope (ILMT) project is a scientific collaboration in observational astrophysics between the Li{\`e}ge Institute of Astrophysics and Geophysics (Li{\`e}ge University, Belgium), the Aryabatta Research Institute of observational sciencES (ARIES, Nainital, India) and several Canadian universities (British Columbia, Laval, Montr{\'e}al, Toronto, Victoria and York). Meanwhile, several other institutes have joined the project: the Royal Observatory of Belgium, the National University of Uzbekistan and the Ulugh Beg Astronomical Institute (Uzbekistan) as well as the Pozna{\'n} Observatory (Poland). The Li{\`e}ge company AMOS (Advanced Mechanical and Optical Systems) has fabricated the telescope structure that has been erected on the ARIES site in Devasthal (Uttarakhand, India). It is the first liquid mirror telescope being dedicated to astronomical observations. First light was obtained on 29 April 2022 and commissioning is being conducted at the present time. In this short article, we describe and illustrate the main components of the ILMT. We also highlight the ILMT papers presented during the third BINA workshop, which discuss various aspects of the ILMT science programs.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2311.05615,
title = {The 4m International Liquid Mirror Telescope project},
author = {Jean Surdej and Bhavya Ailawadhi and Talat Akhunov and Ermanno Borra and Monalisa Dubey and Naveen Dukiya and Jiuyang Fu and Baldeep Grewal and Paul Hickson and Brajesh Kumar and Kuntal Misra and Vibhore Negi and Anna Pospieszalska-Surdej and Kumar Pranshu and Ethen Sun},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2311.05615},
year = {2023}
}
Comments
7 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in the Bulletin of Li\`ege Royal Society of Sciences as a part of 3rd Belgo-Indian Network for Astronomy and Astrophysics (BINA) workshop, 22-24 March 2023