Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Belgian counterpart Charles Michel remotely launched Asia’s biggest telescope, the Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (Aries), ; Aries, the largest optical telescope of its kind in Asia, is a product of Indo-Belgian collaboration. In March 2007, the Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences and Belgian company Advanced Mechanical and Optical Systems (AMOS) had entered a contract for design, manufacture, integration, testing, supply, and installation of the telescope.

India’s largest optical telescope with a 3.6-metre-wide primary mirror is located at Devasthal near Nainital in Uttarakhand. It will be used to study star structures and magnetic field structures of stars;The high end technology incorporated in the telescope enables it to be operated with the help of remote control from anywhere in the world; The telescope will be used in the study and exploration of planets, starts, magnetic field and astronomical debris.

TELESCOPE

A usually tubular optical instrument for viewing distant objects by means of the refraction of light rays through a lens or the reflection of light rays by a concave mirror, by which rays of light are collected and focused and the resulting image magnified.

A curved mirror is a mirror with a curved reflecting surface. The surface may be either convex (bulging outward) or concave (bulging inward).

A convex mirror, fish eye mirror or diverging mirror is a curved mirror in which the reflective surface bulges toward the light source. Convex mirrors reflect light outwards; therefore they are not used to focus light. Such mirrors always form a virtual image; images formed by these mirrors cannot be projected on a screen, since the image is inside the mirror. The image is smaller than the object, but gets larger as the object approaches the mirror. The passenger-side mirror on a car is typically a convex mirror. Also they provide a wider field of view as they are curved outwards. Convex mirrors make everything seem smaller but cover a larger area of surveillance.

A concave mirror, or converging mirror, has a reflecting surface that bulges       inward (away from the incident light). Concave mirrors reflect light inward to one focal point. They are used to focus light. Unlike convex mirrors, concave mirrors show different image types depending on the distance between the object and the mirror.

These mirrors are called “converging” because they tend to collect light that falls on them, refocusing parallel incoming rays toward a focus.

Concave mirrors are used in reflecting telescopes. They are also used to provide a magnified image of the face for applying make-up or shaving. In illumination applications, concave mirrors are used to gather light from a small source and direct it outward in a beam as in torches, headlamps and spotlights, or to collect light from a large area and focus it into a small spot, as in concentrated solar power.