Ramesh Chander Kapoor, a renown astrophysicist and historian of astronomy, passed away in Bengaluru on 21st August 2024, after a brief illness.
He served as the Treasurer of the Astronomical Society of India during 2004-2007 and 2007-2010 and was a Life Member of the ASI, as well as a member of the IAU.
R.C. Kapoor was born on 26 September 1948 and grew up on the banks of Ganga at Haridwar. He obtained a B.Sc. degree from Meerut University, and an M.Sc. degree at KGK College at Moradabad from Agra University. He then joined the Uttar Pradesh State Observatory, Nainital, (now ARIES) in 1971 as a Research Scholar to pursue observational astronomy, and in particular, photoelectric observations of Flare Stars. Following this, he joined the newly constituted Indian Institute of Astrophysics in March 1974. Encouraged by Vainu Bappu, he then pursued his Ph.D. on black holes, and worked with JV Narlikar and SM Chitre, and was awarded the Ph.D degree by Agra University. His main areas of research at the IIA were relativistic astrophysics, black holes, quasars and pulsars. His initial work was on the gravitational searchlight effect, following which he worked on black hole physics, ejection of black holes from galaxies, general relativistic effects around pulsars, pulsar emission theories, and white holes.
Following his retirement from IIA on 30th September 2008, his focus shifted to the history of Indian astronomy, especially in the colonial and pre-colonial period, in which he made pioneering contributions. He published many papers on the the first use of telescopes from India, as well as historic sightings and records of eclipses, comets, meteor showers, as well as planetary transits from India. He was a member of the Editorial Committee of the Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage.
Prof. Kapoor was a participant and an organiser of many eclipse expeditions of IIA (e.g., 1980 India, 1983 Indonesia, 1995 India, 1999 India, 2009 India, 2010 India). He was also passionate about astronomy outreach, while at IIA and thereafter as well. He organised astronomy exhibitions during the Indian Science Congress annual meetings on behalf of IIA for over 25 years, and had a key role in organising a number of activities of IIA, especially public events. He was also regularly sought after by the English and Hindi media, where he was an eloquent speaker about astronomy, science, and scientific temper. He has written many popular articles published in national dailies and science magazines too. He was a strong support of the outreach activities at IIA till his passing, and was engaged deeply in popularising astronomy in Hindi.
He has published papers on the Indian system of medicine as well, a passion which he inherited from his family. He had varied interests including literature, music and poetry, photography and art. We mourn the passing of a renowned astronomer, an expert historian of Indian astronomy, a passionate science educator, as well as an extremely kind, soft spoken, and helpful colleague. He is survived by his wife, his son and daughter, and his grandson.
Prof. R. C. Kapoor in front of the house of Johannes Kepler