Indian scientists have indigenously designed and developed a low-cost optical spectrograph. This can locate sources of faint light from distant quasars and galaxies in a very young universe, regions around supermassive black-holes around the galaxies, and cosmic explosions.

Its worthwhile noting that the spectrograph is about 2.5 times less costly compared to the imported ones and can locate sources of light with a photon-rate as low as about 1 photon per second. The cost of this instrument is nearly Rs 4 crore.

The largest of its kind among the existing astronomical spectrographs in India, it has been successfully commissioned on the 3.6-m Devasthal Optical Telescope (DOT), located near Nainital, Uttarakhand. Interestingly, this spectrograph is not just the largest in the country but also Asia.

Commending the effort, ARIES Director, Prof. Dipankar Banerjee observed, "The indigenous efforts to build complex instruments like ADFOSC in India is an important step to become 'Aatmanirbhar' in the field of astronomy and astrophysics."

(Under an arrangement with indianarrative.com)

(IANS)