HIAL Observatory

Phyang, Leh, Ladakh

Ladakh has one of the best skies to offer being at high altitude, less urbanization and relatively clear skies. But it doesn’t have any large telescopes open to the public for observation. We are setting up a big telescope at Himalayan Institute of Alternatives Ladakh (HIAL) in Phyang, Leh, Ladakh. Which is a valley just west of Leh. The observatory will host a decent 20 inch telescope with an optional evening experience filled with fun and educational activities, along with food which will be served from local support groups in the Phyang village. HIAL already has farm-stays in Phyang and this observatory evening experience will be tied to their itinerary. This will also be an attraction to local tourism. We are also planning to train locals as Astro-ambassadors providing them telescopes which they can take to our farm-stays to provide Telescope experiences on the evenings they stay at their farm-stays. This will also generate revenue for locals and popularising Astronomy and also increasing exposure of locals to Astro-tourism. At HIAL we have an open amphitheatre, we plan to use it to have real under the sky laser guided tours along with educational and cultural elements (like songs, gathered indigenous folk elements etc). To preserve the skies we are trying to have talks with a few irresponsibly lit spaces in our region as well as we plan to educate the villagers about the responsible lighting in the surrounding. Some parts of the village are already equipped with some good responsible street lighting with sensors. We still aren’t sure with the name for our observatory, but will call it ‘HIAL observatory” for now.