After the founding of the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope by Prof. Govind Swarup, a common research facility for astronomy and astrophysics was proposed by Dr. Yash Pal of the planning commission. Working on this idea, astrophysicist Prof. Jayant Narlikar, along with Ajit Kembhavi and Naresh Dadhich set up IUCAA within the PuneUniversity campus in 1988. In 2002, IUCAA initiated a nationwide campaign to popularize astronomy and astrophysics in colleges and universities. IUCAA arranged visitor programs for universities in Nagpur, Thiruvalla, Siliguri and others, along with a tie-up with the Ferguson college, Pune. In 2004, IUCAA set up the Muktangan Vidnyan Shodhika, a science popularization initiative, with a grant from the Pu La Deshpande foundation. The center is open to all school students from Pune. IUCAA was declared the nodal center for India to coordinate the year-long celebrations for the International Year of Astronomy. IUCAA was headed for its first decade by Prof. Jayant Narlikar, followed by Prof. Naresh Dadhich and Prof. Ajit Kembhavi. From September 2015, the Director is Prof. Somak Raychaudhury.
IUCAA, along with Persistent Systems, Pune, operates the Virtual Observatory project. The observatory provides users access to raw observational data along with advanced processing software designed by engineers at Persitent. IUCAA also maintains Girawali Observatory which is about 80 km from Pune city, off Pune-Nasik Road and near the historical Junnar town. In addition to catering to the needs of astronomers in general, this observatory is unique in setting aside a certain amount of time specifically for training as well as observational proposals arising from Indian Universities. The telescope has a primary mirror of diameter 2 meter, f/3 and a secondary of 60 cm, f/10. IUCAA Faint Object Spectrograph & Camera is the main instrument available on the telescope's direct Cassegrain port currently. IUCAA, along with the Raman Research Institute and Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore, declared a proposal to take a ten percent stake in the Large Telescope Project, which would allow Indian astronomers access to major upcoming observatories such as the Giant Magellan Telescope, the Thirty Meter Telescope and the European Extremely Large Telescope.
Science popularization
The SciPop initiative was set up by Prof. Jayant Narlikar along with N. C. Rana and Arvind Paranjpe. SciPop, based out of the Muktangan Vidnyan Shodhika building, provides educational facilities for school students, teachers and amateur astronomers. IUCAA organizes the open Science day program every year on 28 February, in which members of the general public can visit the institute to take a look at ongoing research and contemporary work happening elsewhere in the world. IUCAA was one of the few Indian research institutes to start a science popularization program, and other organisations such as the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, and TIFR, Mumbai started similar public outreach programmes in the wake of its success.
