The observatory is at an altitude of 1680 metres and is adjacent to Guru Shikhar, highest peak of the Aravalli Range.

Further the low amount of precipitable water vapour (1–2 mm during winter) at Guru Shikhar makes it a good site for the infrared telescope observations.

Mount Abu Observatory is equipped with a 1.2m Infrared Telescope along with the following back-end instruments: NICMOS Infrared Camera and Spectrograph, Imaging Fabry-Perot Spectrometer, large format optical CCDs, Optical Imaging Polarimeter and Fibre-linked Grating Spectrograph.

[5] A new high resolution optical spectrometer, PRL Advanced Radial-velocity All-sky Search (PARAS) to detect extrasolar planets using the radial velocity technique began observation in April 2012.

This facility will have a one-meter diameter telescope with sophisticated optics and back-end instruments assembled by the Laboratory for Electro-Optics Systems (LEOS), Bengaluru.