International Liquid Mirror Telescope (ILMT) is the country’s first and largest liquid-mirror telescope, as well as the largest in Asia.

Built by astronomers from India, Belgium, and Canada, the novel instrument employs a 4-meter-diameter rotating mirror made up of a thin film of liquid mercury to collect and focus light. It is located at an altitude of 2,450 meters at the Devasthal Observatory campus of Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES), an autonomous institute under the Central government’s Department of Science and Technology (DST), in Nainital district, Uttarakhand.

The scientists from the three countries spun a pool of mercury which is a reflective liquid so that the surface curved into a parabolic shape which is ideal for focusing light. A thin transparent film of mylar protects the mercury from the wind. The reflected light passes through a sophisticated multi-lens optical corrector that produces sharp images over a wide field of view. A large-format electronic camera located at the focus records the images.

The telescope was designed and built by the Advanced Mechanical and Optical Systems (AMOS) Corporation and the Centre Spatial de Liège in Belgium.

According to republicworld