Prof. Govind Swarup addressing a gathering about Ooty Radio Telescope

The Ooty Radio Telescope (ORT, as it is known) is a cylindrical paraboloid of reflecting surface, 530 m long and 30 m wide, placed on a hill whose slope of about 11 degree in the north-south direction which is the same as the latitude of the location of ORT. This makes it possible to track celestial objects for about 10 hours continously from their rising in east to their setting in the west by simply rotating the antenna mechanically along its long axis. The antenna beam can be steered in the north-south direction by electronic phasing of the 1056 dipoles placed along the focal line of the reflector. The reflecting surface is made up of 1100 thin stainless steel wires, each 530 m long. It is supported by 24 parabolic frames separated by 23 m from each other.

The telescope is operated at 326.5 MHz (a wavelength of 0.92 m) with 15 MHz usable bandwidth. The large size of the telescope makes it highly sensitive. As an example, it is in principle capable of detecting signals from a mere 1 watt radio station located ten million kilo meter away in space.

The Ooty Radio Telescope has been designed and fabricated fully indigenously. The ORT completed in 1970 and continues to be one of the most sensitive radio telescopes in the world. Observations made using this telescope have led to important discoveries and to explain various phenomena occurring in our Solar system and in other celestial bodies.

Prof. Govind Swarup is a radio astronomer and one of the pioneers of radio astronomy. He is known not only for his many important research contributions in several areas of astronomy and astrophysics, but also for his outstanding achievements in building ingenious, innovative and powerful observational facilities for front-line research in radio astronomy. He has been the key scientist behind concept, design and installation of the Ooty Radio Telescope (India) and the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) near Pune. Under his leadership, a strong group in radio astrophysics has been built at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research that is comparable to the best in the world.