A Visit To The Legendary Alibag Observatory

Old Alibag magnetic observatory.
It is still working!

In 1900, the British Indian government decided to electrify tram service in Bombay and it was a threat to the magnetic observations at Colaba observatory.

Dr. N.A.F. Moos found an alternative place at Alibaug, 30km away from Bombay - a pleasant place in Raigad district of Maharashtra. Most of the IIG staff and family members and research scholars came to the observatory.

Cricket at Alibag beach.

After a cup of tea and snacks we started playing cricket at the beach women folk were engaged in some other games. Alibag is a tourist attraction due to various facilities available and its green and pleasant atmosphere.

The observatory campus houses magnetometers and some other instruments like any other IIG observatory. It has a lot of coconut trees inside the campus. Most of the buildings are almost a hundred year old! 

Old building: The ground floor
houses the museum.

The greatest attraction here is the museum set up. It preserves a lot of instruments and tools used in IIG at various times. There are lots of varieties of magnetometers and telescopes. There was an old chair used by Dr. Moos too!

At Alibag beach: an old fort used
 by Sivaji is seen in the background.

For a few years, the Colaba and Alibag observatories were run together to compare the observations at these two sites. If any mismatch in observations were seen, it could not be used as an observatory. But fortunately the magnetic observations at Alibag was as good as it was at Colaba.

There were no one to explain the story of old instruments in the observatory museums, as so many visitors came together. All I could understand was that those instruments were used a hundred years ago. Each instrument must have a story to tell. I don't know which magnetometer recorded the historic aurora at Bombay! I feel there is a need to preserve and document a lot of things at IIG. Not only mere instruments; the story of each instrument should be documented well. The historic aurora was recorded manually at the IIG since magnetometers were not recording the measurements automatically. But nobody knows who recorded that! May be Indian scientists are not good in documenting the history of Indian science!