| Abstract: The GROWTH-India Telescope (GIT) is a 0.7 m robotic telescope located at the Indian Astronomical Observatory, Hanle. It was established in 2018 as a partnership between the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) and the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB), with support from DST-SERB and IUSSTF. Current operations are supported by IIA and generous support from the IITB alumni batch of 1994. The telescope, dedicated to time-domain astronomy, is part of the international GROWTH network, a Global Relay of Observatories Watching Transients Happen (GROWTH). The GIT has a wide field of view of 0.7 X 0.7 deg, with a 4K X 4K back-illuminated CCD as its primary detector. The imager is equipped with the SDSS ugriz (prime) filters, providing a sensitivity of m(g′)∼20.5 in 5-minute exposures. Robotic operations of the telescope are handled by custom software developed at IITB. This enables high on-sky observing efficiency (~85%) and rapid response to targets of opportunity. The data processing pipelines developed by the IITB and IIA teams perform point-spread function photometry and image subtraction for transient searches. In this talk, we provide an overview of GIT and its contributions to the studies of gammaray bursts, the electromagnetic counterparts to gravitational wave sources, fast transients, supernovae, novae, and solar system objects. |
