First science observation The GROWTH-India telescope was commissioned six months ago soon after which it saw first light, on the night of June 12. “The telescope has been taking readings since then, and this is the first ‘follow-up’ work. We are happy to see this first science observation,” said G C Anupama, who Professor-in-Charge of the Indian Astronomical Observatory and is based at Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIAP), Bengaluru. The celestial object was first noticed by a different group which saw the nova explosion. “We then pointed our telescope in that direction and measured the brightness. We found that it was fading at the rate expected for such events. This is a small step in astronomy but a big leap for us, because it is the first scientific result obtained by this telescope,” said Varun Bhalerao a faculty member at IIT Bombay and a Principal Investigator of the project along with Professor Anupama. This recurrent nova, named M31N-2008, has been observed to eru...