| Name: | Kuntal Misra |
| Affiliation: | ARIES |
| Conference ID: | ASI2025_714 |
| Title: | Initial results from the 4-m International Liquid Mirror Telescope (ILMT) |
| Authors: | Kuntal Misra (1), Jean Surdej (2,1), Paul Hickson (3,4) et al. on behalf of a larger collaboration |
| Authors Affiliation: | 1 Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences, Manora Peak, Nainital, 263001, Uttarakhand, India
2 Institute of Astrophysics and Geophysics, Li\`{e}ge University, All\'ee du 6 Ao\^{u}t 19c, 4000 Li\`{e}ge, Belgium
3 Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of British Columbia, 6224 Agricultural Road, Vancouver, V6T 1Z1, BC, Canada
4 Outer Space Institute, The University of British Columbia, 325-6224 Agricultural Road, Vancouver, V6T 1Z1, BC, Canada |
| Mode of Presentation: | Oral |
| Abstract Category: | Facilities, Technologies and Data science |
| Abstract: | The 4m International Liquid Mirror Telescope (ILMT) is the first optical survey telescope in Devasthal, India. The telescope achieved its first light on 29 April 2022. The primary mirror is made of liquid mercury, continuously spinning to achieve a paraboloid shape. It constantly scans a 22 arcmin wide strip of the zenithal sky and records the images in three broadband filters (g', r' and i') using a 4k X 4k CCD camera in Time Delay Integration (TDI) mode. In about 10-12 hours of observations during a single night, approximately 15 GB of data volume is generated. To process this data, different automated pipelines are developed to perform the astrometric and photometric calibration, image subtraction to detect new transients and machine learning based tools to classify these transients. In this talk, I will give a brief overview of the ILMT and its science drivers, the initial results and the availability of data to the users. |
