Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES) is a research institute in Nainital, Kumaon, India which specializes in astronomy, solar physics, astrophysics and atmospheric science. It is an autonomous body under the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India. The institute is situated at Manora Peak (elevation ), about from Nainital, headquarters of Kumaon division. The astronomical observatory is open to the public on afternoons, and on occasional moonlit nights with prior permission. History The institute was started on 20 April 1954 under the supervision of Dr. A. N. Singh as Uttar Pradesh State Observatory (UPSO) in the premises of the Government Sanskrit College, presently known as Sampurnanand Sanskrit Vishwavidyalaya, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh. With the formation of the State of Uttarakhand on 9 November 2000, and because of its geographical location within the boundaries of Uttarakhand, UPSO came under the administrative control of the Government of Uttarakhand and was re-christened as the State Observatory (SO). The institute was named as Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES) when it came under the Department of Science & Technology (DST), Government of India as an autonomous body on 22 March 2004. Site ARIES has of land at Manora Peak, Nainital on which functional and residential buildings are located. An additional has been acquired at Devasthal, nearly away by road, for new observational facilities. The site has about 200 clear nights in a year and the median ground level seeing is about 1". Research facilities Astronomy and Astrophysics Research activities at ARIES cover topics related to the sun, stars and galaxies. ARIES has made significant contributions particularly to the field of star clusters and gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). The longitude of ARIES (79° East) locates it in the middle of a 180-degree wide longitude band having modern astronomical facilities lying between the Canary Islands (20° West) and Eastern Australia (157° East). Therefore, observations which are not possible in the Canary Islands or Australia due to daylight can be made at ARIES. Because of its geographical location, ARIES has made contributions to many areas of astronomical research, particularly those involving time-critical phenomena (e.g., the first successful attempt in the country to observe optical afterglow of GRBs was carried out from ARIES). Many eclipsing binaries, variable stars, star clusters, nearby galaxies, GRBs, and supernovas have been observed from ARIES. The other research fields of the institute include solar astronomy, stellar astronomy, star clusters, stellar variability