Udaipur Solar Observatory

Solar Observatory (USO) is located near Shilpgram at the Fateh Sagar Lake in Udaipur. There are only two observatories in India that are situated amidst water and Udaipur Solar Observatory is one of them. Dr. Arvind Bhatnagar was the person who built this solar observatory during 1975 under the aegis of Vedshala Trust Ahmedabad and Department of Science and Technology. He was later joined by Dr. Ashok Ambastha in 1983. Then after this, a lot of other people kept joining the observatory to give their share of work for it. They all kept contributing to the growth of the observatory at various times. The main objective behind the construction of this observatory was to monitor the sun constantly. There is a Big Bear Solar inventory in South California and this observatory of Udaipur was designed as per that model. The Department of Space, Government of India took over this observatory under the administration of Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad in 1981. This one is officially the best solar observing site in Asia. This is the best observatory to view the movement of the sun.

It is also one of the very few observatories from around the world that is situated on the land. The reason for building this observatory in Udaipur was because the sky conditions are most favourable here. The observatory is situated midst the water and because of this the air turbulence occurring due to ground heating by sunlight is decreased. All these features in return improve the image accuracy and quality. This also proves that the location is beneficial to experience the sun’s movements and solar observations. It is situated in Rajasthan, a desert state, the region witnesses very less Monsoon clouds. This observatory aspires to do some further researches in modern science. This is also the best centre to develop solar physics in India.

USO has been established 25 years ago and this proves that it has examined entire solar cycle. It is soon going to examine the next solar cycle too. USO is of utmost importance to the country with respect to the department of astronomical science, physics, solar observations, and related things.

The Udaipur Solar Observatory has a lot of high resolution equipments for the solar chromospheres, velocity, magnetic field, and for the spectral observations. All of these equipments are used to study the solar flares, mass ejections, and the evolution of the solar active region. There is a large longitudinal gap in between Australia and Spain and this Udaipur solar observatory fills this gap. It also provides a link for continuous solar coverage in the International collaborative programmes. One of their famous programs includes Global Oscillations Network Group (GONG). They provide solar coverage to these programmes. USO is a site of international and national importance.

They use a variety of telescopes at the observatory. USO is the one that fills the longitudinal gap between Australia and Spain. The Multi Application Solar Telescope (MAST) was put into operation on 16th June, 2015. MAST is another telescope which is an off axis Gregorian Coude telescope. This was used to study the magnetic field of the sun. It has a 50 cm aperture. A new device called as Solar Vector Magnetograph will soon be established at USO to determine the magnitude fields.

The timing of operation of the observatory is from 10 am to 6 pm but the observatory is not open for the general public to explore and view. This is a restricted area and is only accessible for the working staff of USO. For the public, they can take a boat ride on the Fateh Sagar Lake to view it from a distance but going inside is not permitted. The weather of the place during the summer season is around 30°C to 40°C and during the winter season it is from 10°C to 20°C.