IIA receives 5 HAGAR telescopes from Avasarala Technologies

Bangalore, July 1 (UNI) The Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), Bangalore, today received five units of indigeniously designed and built High Altitude Gamma Ray (HAGAR) Telescopes from the city-based Avasarala Technologies.

Speaking after symbolically receiving the documents of the delivery of five HAGAR units from Company Managing Director and CEO T T Mani here, IIA Director S S Hasan said a historical milestone had been achieved by joining hands with private partners to implement scientific projects.

He said the IIA, Bangalore, and Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) Mumbai, were in the process of setting up a High Altitude Gamma Ray (HAGAR) observatory at the Indian Astronomical Observatory (IAO) at Hanle in the Ladakh Region of Jammu and Kashmir. The Observatory would study gamma rays emitted by quasars, pulsars, supernova remnants and gamma ray burst sources using the atmospheric Cerenkov technique.

He said that India was one of the pioneer countries in the field of Gamma Ray Astronomy with experiments undertaken at Ootacamund and Gulmarg in the 1970s, and later at Pachmarhi and Mt Abu. The high-altitude site of HAGAR would allow it to reach lower energies than before, with a threshold of 50 GeV. When completed, HAGAR would be the only facility in the world to achieve such a low threshold, he added.

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