India to build world's largest Solar Telescope

Bangalore, Aug 11 (UNI) City-based Indian Institute of Astrophysics would build the world's largest Solar Telescope by the year 2013, Institute Director Siraj Hasan said.

Speaking to reporters during the Founder's Day celebration here, he said the detailed proposal for the two-meter telescope was under preparation and would be sent to the Union Ministry of Science in one year time.

"We would need three years time once we get the go ahead. Three locations have been shortlisted for setting up the telescope. This include Hanle and another location, both in Ladakh or it would be at Devasthal in Uttarkhand," he said.

Prof Hasan said this telescope would be the largest in the world at that time. There were programmes from other countries to build much larger solar telescopes but they had a much longer time frame to build and would come up only after the year 2016, he said.

For optical astronomy there are much larger telescopes, even in India, but for solar this will be the largest. The telescope would cost between Rs 100 to Rs 150 crore for basic instrument and this does not included the 'back end' instruments like spectrograph, he said.

About 40 people, including 20 scientists, were involved in the work of preparing the design plan of the telescope, he added.

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