Article ID: CBB478495888

Govind Swarup, Potts Hill and the Kalyan Array: India's first radio telescope (2022)

unapi

India's first radio telescope was the Kalyan Array, a T-configuration solar grating array erected near Bombay (Mumbai) in 1965. This was then used until 1968 to monitor solar radio emission at 612 MHz. The antennas from this radio telescope originally formed the E-W solar grating interferometer invented by the Australian radio astronomer W.N. (Chris) Christiansen, and were sited at Potts Hill in Sydney, a field station Keywords: Govind Swarup, Potts Hill, W.N Christiansen, solar grating arrays, Kalyan Array, coronal emission, radio plages, Ooty Radio Telescope maintained by the CSIRO's Division of Radiophysics. In early 1953 Govind Swarup (along with R. Parthasarathy) went to Sydney on a 2-year Colombo Plan Fellowship, and was involved in reducing observations made by this array and a companion N-S grating array. Then, in 1954, Govind and Parthasarathy altered the array so that it could operate at 500 MHz, and they used it to examine the extent of limb-brightening at this frequency. When both arrays became surplus to requirements in March 1955 Govind convinced the Division of Radiophysics to donate the E-W array antennas to the Physical Research Laboratory in New Delhi. This eventually occurred, and after some delay and the transfer of the antennas to the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Bombay they were erected nearby at Kalyan. In this paper I review Govind Swarup's Sydney 'apprenticeship' and his substantial involvement with the Potts Hill E-W solar grating array; his subsequent return to India and intervals he then spent in the USA at Fort Davis (Harvard University) and Stanford University (where he completed a solar radio astronomy PhD); his return to India to found the Tata Institute's radio astronomy group; erection of the solar grating array at Kalyan, and the solar research that was carried out with it; and - finally - how the Kalyan Array was always perceived as a training facility and forerunner to the much more ambitious Ooty Radio Telescope.

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Authors & Contributors
Orchiston, Wayne
Ishiguro, Masato
Nakamura, Tsuko
Steinberg, Jean-Louis
Kapoor, R. C.
Jagdev Singh
Concepts
Radio astronomy
Instruments, astronomical
Telescopes
Solar astronomy
Astronomy
Scientific apparatus and instruments
Time Periods
20th century, late
21st century
20th century
17th century
Places
Japan
France
India
Tokyo (Japan)
United States
Australia
Institutions
Osaka City University
Indian Institute of Astrophysics
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie
United States. Office of Naval Research
National Radio Astronomy Observatory (U.S.)
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