and pulsation, photometric studies of nearby galaxies, quasars, and transient events like supernovas and highly energetic gamma-ray bursts. A total solar eclipse lasting about 4 minutes was successfully observed from Manavgat, Antalya in Turkey on 29 March 2006 by a team of scientists from ARIES. In past, new ring systems around Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune were discovered from the observatory. Recently, a direct correlation between the intra-night optical variability and the degree of polarization of the radio jets in quasars was established based on the observations from ARIES. For the first time periodic oscillations are detected in optical intra-day variability data of blazars, which is useful to get the black hole mass of blazars, and also provide support to accretion disk-based models of AGNs. Atmospheric Sciences Nainital is located at a high altitude in the central Himalayas and away from cities or other major pollution sources. This makes it suitable for carrying out observations on background conditions and for studying the regional environment, particularly interactions between natural and anthropogenic trace species and climate change. Additionally, the ARIES site can also provide information on long range transport of pollutants. Studies on lower atmospheric dynamics are also very important in this region, which is severely lacking over northern India. Infrastructure The Institute has in-house workshops to meet the requirements of electronic, mechanical, and optical maintenance of the instruments. ARIES has a modern computer center with Internet and a library with more than 10,000 volumes of research journals and a collection of books on astronomy, astrophysics and atmospheric science. Facilities 3.6m Devasthal Optical Telescope 1.3m Devasthal Optical Telescope 104 cm Sampurnanand Telescope Solar Telescope 4m International Liquid Mirror Telescope (ILMT) Baker-Nunn Schmidt Telescope (BNST) Stratosphere Troposphere Radar See also Devasthal Observatory List of astronomical observatories References Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences External links ARIES, Official website ARIES at Department of Science and Technology website Research institutes in Uttarakhand Astrophysics institutes Astronomical observatories in India Space programme of India Nainital Research institutes established in 1954 Organisations based in Uttarakhand 1954 establishments in Uttar Pradesh