|| नासदीये स्थितो मनः ||

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Welcome to the homepage of IBAC!

Founded in 2015 by the then-secretary of the IISERB Science Council, Navin Sridhar, IBAC has been one of the major students' activity clubs of IISER Bhopal. We have procured various pieces of equipment for amateur astronomy and astrophotography as well as a professional observatory facility within the campus. Some of the notable instruments include a 14" Cassegrain telescope with German equatorial mount housed in a dome, a 6" Newtonian reflector telescope with Dobsonian mount that we like to call "Dobby", and three high-quality skygazers' binoculars - two Olympus 10x50 and one Nikon Aculon.

Apart from our regular night-sky observations, we strive to spread knowledge of astronomical and astrophysical phenomena with the aid of classroom talks, discussions, model-making, and various competitions. Recently we have started to live-stream some of the major events in the field of astrophysics and space science on large screens. These events have seen an unprecedented response from the community.

A Brief History of IBAC!

Navin Sridhar, a BS-MS student (currently alumnus), was very enthusiastic about astronomy. When he joined IISER Bhopal in August 2013, however, there was no students' activity club for the people who shared his passion. In 2014, he became the secretary of the science council of IISERB. He immediately availed sanctions from the institute for procuring astronomical instruments and established a club under the council, thence named IISER Bhopal Astronomy Club, or as we call it now, IBAC. The club has ever grown since then. IBAC has had six coordinators since its inception including the founder Navin Sridhar; Parth Nayak (BS-MS 2015), Anand Golait (BS-MS 2015), Vineet Maurya (BS-MS 2016), Kavin Kumar (BS-MS 2018), Arihant Tiwari (BS-MS 2019), and Gourav Kumawat(BS-MS 2019) chronologically. Under the leadership of Vineet Maurya, the construction of a dome facility for our 14" Cassegrain telescope was completed, and thenceforth a student research group was established. On National Science Day, 28 February 2019, IBAC hosted the maiden edition of the event, "Hunting the Heavens". Today, IBAC is one of the most popular student clubs of IISER Bhopal.