The 4m International Liquid Mirror Telescope: a brief history and some preliminary scientific results

TL;DR

The paper discusses the history, design, and initial scientific results of the 4m International Liquid Mirror Telescope, highlighting its unique role in astrophysical observations and presenting early CCD imaging results from its commissioning phase.

Contribution

It introduces the 4m ILMT as the first liquid mirror telescope dedicated to astrophysics and shares preliminary scientific findings and operational insights.

Findings

First CCD images from the 4m ILMT commissioning

Initial scientific results in astrophysics

Operational performance during early observations

Abstract

The present article is based upon an invited talk delivered at the occasion of the inauguration of the 4m International Liquid Mirror Telescope (ILMT) which took place in Devasthal (ARIES, Uttarakhand, India) on 21st of March 2023. We present hereafter a short history of the liquid mirror telescopes and in particular of the 4m ILMT which is the first liquid mirror telescope entirely dedicated to astrophysical observations. We discuss a few preliminary scientific results and illustrate some direct CCD images taken during the first commissioning phase of the telescope. We invite the reader to refer to the series of ILMT poster papers published in these same proceedings of the BINA3 workshop for more details about the instrument, operation, first observations, performance and scientific results.