Arvind Bhatnagar

Arvind Bhatnagar made signicant contributions to Solar Astronomy, and founded several planetaria across India. He was the founder-director of the Udaipur Solar
Observatory, and the founder director of Nehru Planetarium of Bombay.[1]

exact diameter of the sun-which today still remains unknown, by precisely measuring the suns shadow cast on
the earth. Three Indian Air Force planes were deployed
with cameramen and scientists to examine the umbra.
Separately, a pair of IAF MiG-25 ghters were tted with
Prof. Arvind Bhatnagar was known internationally for equipment to photograph the outer solar corona and also
the dust rings around it, in the darkest, clearest possible
his signicant contributions to Solar Astronomy. He was
the founder-director of the Udaipur Solar Observatory. sky.
He also took immense interest in popularization of as- In 1996, Prof. Bhatnagar started a novel project called
tronomy and helped establishing several planetaria across SUCHE (Swatch, Healthy,Urban, Clean and Hygienic
India. Arvind Bhatnagar was born in Beawar,Rajasthan Environment) Abhiyan in several localities of Udaipur
on 19 November 1936. After completing his MSc in under ASTHA Sansthan for solid waste management
Physics,he joined the UP State Observatory, Nainital, in through public participation. He was also appointed as
1958 and worked there until 1961. He obtained his PhD one of the High Court Commissioners to monitor the didegree in Solar Physics in 1964 from Agra University rectives of the High Court in connection with protection
while working at the Kodaikanal Observatory under the of the lake system of Udaipur.
guidance of Prof. M K. Vainu Bappu.
Prof. Arvind Bhatnagar died on the evening of 18 May
He was awarded the Carnegie Fellowship to work at 2006 at Udaipur leaving behind a large void in both sciMount Wilson and Palomar Observatories, USA, dur- entic as well as social front.
ing 1968-70. Afterwards he worked as a Resident Astronomer at the Big Bear Solar Observatory of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, 1 Publications
USA till 1972.
Fundamentals of Solar Astronomy, William Livingston coauthor, World Scientic Publishing Company, Inc., 2005

In 1972, Prof. Bhatnagar returned to India to establish a unique island solar observatory in the middle
of Lake Fatehsagar in Udaipur under the aegis of the
Vedhshala,Ahmedabad. This lake site was carefully selected by him after taking into consideration the facts
that Rajasthan received the maximum sunshine and the
large body of lake water helps to stabilize the air turbulence arising due to heating of ground by the solar radiation. Due to his eorts, the solar observatory was taken
over by the Department of Space in December 1981 for
its speedy growth, and was aliated to the Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad. The Udaipur Solar Observatory has become internationally renowned as one of
the major centers for high-resolution solar observations.
It is also one of the six observatories located around the
world participating in the Global Oscillations Network
Group (GONG) for the study of solar interior.

2 References
[1] Bulletins of the Astronomical Society of India, Volume
34, Number 2, June 2006 Obituary

Another important event in Dr. Arvind Bhatnagars Scientic tryst was on 24 October 1995, during the Total
Solar Eclipse, where Dr. Arvind Bhatnagar supervised
the MiG-25 aircraft ying at 80,000 feet altitude as they
traveled along the path of the eclipse at 3,000 km/h, gaining several precious minutes of observation denied to researchers stuck on the ground.
This was an attempt by Indian Scientists to pin down the

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