[1] It has reported the capture of its first light on 15 October 2022 upon the commissioning of INO340, a home-grown optical telescope with a primary mirror of 3.4 m, making it by far the country's largest astronomical research facility.

[4] The primary goal is the design and construction of a 4 m-class optical telescope and other smaller observing facilities to respond to a growing demand.

The training capabilities in observational astronomy in Iran in late 2000s was unable to meet the growing demand due to a rapid growth in higher education.

Iranian scientists see the project as a platform to catch up with the science and technological developments in the field of astronomy and cosmology.

On top of the concrete building there is a rotating cylindrical structure of approximately 200 tons, with a 5-m shutter to facilitate the exposure of the primary mirror to the light from the dark night objects and five windows to allow air flow inside the dome.

The facility consists of three elements: First, an automatic DIMM seeing monitor placed at a height of 6 m above the surface of the mountain, remotely operated from Tehran; Secondly, a standard weather station at 9 m above the ground; And finally, an all-sky camera.

The array is particularly designed to reveal faint structures by greatly reducing scattered light and internal reflections within its optics.

Some of the scientific goals envisioned for the INOLA include observing faint galaxies, stellar halos and substructures, tidal debris around galaxies, comets and minor bodies in the solar system, light echos, intra-cluster light, variable stars and exoplanetary transits.

[17] The study of galaxies and our current understanding of the formation and evolution of the large- and small-scale structures are, to a large extent, based on the observations carried out by mid-size telescopes.

In 2024, using the Iranian National Observatory Lens Array (INOLA), the first ever attempt at exploring the stellar halo of M33 Galaxy using ultra-deep broad-band imaging was conducted and reported.