Vainu Bappu Observatory is an astronomical observatory owned by the Indian Institute of Astro Physics. The Observatory is located in the Javadi Hills in Kavalur in Tamil Nadu near Bengaluru. The Vainu Bappu Observatory was established by M.K Vainu Bappu and was inaugurated in the year 1986 by Rajiv Gandhi. The Vainu Bappu Observatory has the largest telescope of Asia. Besides the largest telescope of the continent the observatory also has two other telescopes. In the Vainu Bappu Observatory a lot of important scientific discoveries are carried out. In the year 1972 with the help of the telescope atmosphere was discovered around Ganymede, the satellite of Jupiter. In 1977 rings were discovered around the planet Uranus. Again in the year 1984 with the help of the telescope a thin outer ring was discovered around the planet Saturn.
On 17th February in the year 1988 an important discovery was carried out by the Vainu Bappu Observatory. They discovered a new planet and had named it as 4130 Ramaanujam after the famous mathematician Srinivas Ramaanujam. From India it was the first such discovery.
With the help of the telescope housed in the Vainu Bappu University a lot of front line scientific activities have been carried out. The front line scientific experiments include observation of stars, star clusters, galaxies other solar system objects, reflection of gamma rays and stellar observation is also possible with the help of the telescope that is present in the observatory.
The largest telescope placed in the Vainu Bappu Observatory has highly specialised technical appendages in order to keep the functioning of the telescope in a proper manner. The special technical features of Vainu Bappu Observatory include a high-resolution spectrometer and a powerful camera mainly used to capture solar images. The various experiments that have been carried out in the Vainu Bappu Observatory have received a lot of praise throughout the country.
Thus, Vainu Bappu Observatory is one of the field stations of Indian Institute of Astro Physics mainly devoted to research activities with the help of observation.
