Measures have been taken to allocate more funding to the Iranian National Observatory project in the current Iranian year (started March 21), Iranian Vice President for Science and Technology Sorena Sattari said. All efforts should be taken for the INO project to be inaugurated as soon as possible, he said last week during a daylong trip to the central province of Kashan, IRNA reported. The construction of INO started in 1998 after it was approved by the Council of Scientific Research. The optical observatory is perched at 3,800 meters above sea level on Mount Gargash in Zagros mountain range in Kamoo Chogan area near Kashan. The establishment of INO was approved by the government in March 2004, after which it was assigned to the Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences in December 2006. After a 12-year study and assessment of over 40 mountains, the project finally started in 2004. The INO site monitoring station went operational in Nov. 2014. The station is located 500 meters southeast of Gargash peak where the 3.4-meter Telescope is planned to be located. Workshops, research centers, lodging camps and service centers have been set up on the route leading to the observatory.
