Under his Guiding Stars: Founder’s Day 2025 Honouring Prof. M. K. Vainu Bappu
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Under his Guiding Stars: Founder’s Day 2025 Honouring Prof. M. K. Vainu Bappu

The morning of 11th August 2025 dawned bright over the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, carrying with it a sense of reverence and pride. Although Founder’s Day is traditionally observed on 10th August, this year’s celebration was moved to Monday to allow the IIA community to gather fully. The occasion marked the birth anniversary of Prof….

IIA Celebrates Prof. M. K. V. Bappu’s Birth Anniversary
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IIA Celebrates Prof. M. K. V. Bappu’s Birth Anniversary

The Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) commemorated the birth anniversary of the late Prof. M. K. Vainu Bappu on August 10th, observed as Founders Day. The event commenced at 10:00 AM with the garlanding of Prof. Bappu’s photograph by Director Annapurni Subramaniam in the IIA Bengaluru Campus Library, followed by a lecture by Prof. Umesh…

Attaché for Sciences and Higher Education, French Embassy in India, visited KSO Library.
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Attaché for Sciences and Higher Education, French Embassy in India, visited KSO Library.

Dr. François-Xavier Mortreuil, Attaché for Sciences and Higher Education, French Embassy in India, visited the Kodaikanal Solar Observatory Library on 2023 September 22. He had gone through documents including the 19th-century Annales de l’Observatoire de Paris, the 20th-century Annales de l’Observatoire de Bordeaux, and the unique Spots Faculae Prominences of Kodaikanal Solar Observatory, among other…

Kodaikanal Solar Observatory celebrated IIA Founder’s Day
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Kodaikanal Solar Observatory celebrated IIA Founder’s Day

IIA celebrates the birth anniversary of our founder director, Prof. M. K. Vainu Bappu, as Founder’s Day on August 10th every year. This year also, we celebrated the same in grand. IIA staff, outsource staff members, trainees, and students participated in the Founder’s Day meeting held at KSO Library on August 10, 2023, at 10.30…

The Indian Eclipse Expedition, 1922: records from IIA Archives

The Indian Eclipse Expedition, 1922: records from IIA Archives

The scientific community is commemorating the Centenary celebration of the 1922 Indian expedition to Wallal, Australia, to observe a solar eclipse. Albert Einstein published his Theory of Relativity, arguing that gravitational objects with gravitational influence warped spacetime around them. On September 1922, a group of renowned astronomers conducted an expedition on a remote shore in…

A Heritage Library in the Mountain Observatory (Part II)

A Heritage Library in the Mountain Observatory (Part II)

Christina Birdie & A. Vagiswari Special Archival Collection of resources in the library of Kodaikanal Observatory Library inherited the priceless copy of ‘Astronomia Nova’ by Kepler dating back to 1609. The volume is leather-bound with 650 pages of Latin text, calculations, tables of observations, and woodcut diagrams of planetary orbits. Very little is known about…