NIT Srinagar Opens India's First Campus Observatory Among NITs on September 22, 2026

Key facts

• NIT Srinagar will become the first NIT in India to have a dedicated campus-based astronomical observatory, the NIT-Srinagar Observatory for Astronomy and Astrophysics (NSOAA), to be inaugurated on September 22, 2026.
• The observatory's centrepiece is a 14-inch Celestron C14 EdgeHD aplanatic Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope with a computerised equatorial mount, developed with scientific collaboration from the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), Bengaluru.
• Dr. Niruj Mohan Ramanujam, Scientist F and head of the SCOPE Section at IIA, is an adviser and collaborator, while Professor Prince Ahmad Ganai, Head of Physics at NIT-Srinagar, is leading the project.
• The system includes planetary and cooled deep-sky cameras, LRGB filters, a 2.5x Barlow lens and high-speed imaging for observing the Moon, planets, nebulae, star clusters and galaxies.
• IIT Kanpur also operates a 14-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain observatory with CCD imaging and remote-operation capabilities, one of the few Indian technical institutions with such facilities.