At a distance of 77 km from Vellore and 54 km from Yelagiri, The Vainu Bappu Observatory is an astronomical observatory owned and operated by Indian Institute of Astrophysics. It’s situated at Kavalur within the Javadi hills close to Vaniyambadi in Vellore district of Tamil Nadu.
The Kavalur Observatory is situated in a 100 acre forest land. The observatory homes plenty of optical telescopes, together with at present India’s largest optical telescope the two.3m Vainu Bappu telescope, 1.three meter J.C Bhattacharya telescope, 1m Carl Zeiss Telescope and plenty of different smaller ones. Aside from the Telescopes, there may be additionally a Fabry-Perot Interferometer which is getting used to review airglow emissions from the Earth’s thermosphere. The observatory is located at an altitude of 725m. A number of forms of crops, some wildlife and totally different birds are noticed within the campus.
The observatory traces its origin again to the yr 1786 when William Petrie arrange his personal observatory at his backyard home at Egmore, Madras, which ultimately got here to be often known as the Madras Observatory. Later it was moved over to Kodaikanal and functioned there because the Kodaikanal Observatory since 1899. M.Okay. Vainu Bappu who took over because the Director of the Kodaikanal Observatory in 1960, discovered a sleepy little hamlet referred to as Kavalur within the Javadu Hills as an appropriate website for establishing optical telescopes for observing the celestial objects. This got here to be often known as Kavalur Observatory. Later, the identify was modified to Indian Institute of Astrophysics.
Vainu Bappu Observatory is open to public on Saturdays between three PM to 9 PM. The operation of Vainu Bappu Telescope shall be proven. If clear, night time sky can even be proven via the 15 cm customer telescope.
Presently the customer program is suspended on account of some renovation.