Abstract
This article describes the origin and development of the radio astronomy group of Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), which later became the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics in Pune in 1991, under the leadership and guidance of Govind Swarup over the past 50 years. The innovativeness of the designs and the indigenous development of the large radio telescopes by a team of young scientists and engineers are highlighted. The scientific results from the work of the group are briefly summarized.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank all those individuals involved in the design, construction, modification, and continued operation of ORT and GMRT. The list is too large to be given here. References have been kept to the minimum and reflect only the earliest papers relevant in each case. Many details on phasing and combining of arrays can be found in the lucid articles in Resonance [18, 19] and in the website https://www.ncra.tifr.res.in. The authors wish to thank Profs. Vasant Kulkarni and P. Janardhan for their critical reading and suggestions. The authors thank the referee for his insightful comments.
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S Ananthakrishnan was associated closely with both the Ooty Radio Telescope and the GMRT. After retiring from NCRA-TIFR, he has been an Adjunct Professor of S.P. Pune University. His research interests include Sun, solar wind, extragalactic radio sources and nearby galaxies and antenna designs.
V Balasubramanian joined TIFR after BARC Training school. For the rest of his career, he was closely associated with the Ooty Radio Telescope and its further development. He was instrumental in realizing the SMART design of GMRT antennas. His research interests include pulsar scintillations, IPS studies of space weather and solar concentrators.
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Ananthakrishnan, S., Balasubramanian, V. Beginnings and Growth of Radio Astronomy in TIFR. Reson 26, 895–917 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12045-021-1191-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12045-021-1191-3