Simeiz Observatory

In 1906, an expedition from Pulkovo astronomers arrived in the Crimea to find a suitable place for the southern observatory. The expedition consisted of A. P. Gansky and G. A. Tikhov. They liked the place in the Simeiz area. They unexpectedly found two domes of the observatory, but without telescopes, on Cat Mountain (slightly higher than Simeiz). It turned out that this small observatory belongs to the astronomist N. S. Mal'tsov . After a short correspondence, N. S. Maltsov offered his observatory as a gift from the Pulkovo Observatory to create its southern astrophysical department there. In 1908, a small double astrograph was installed (D = 120 mm). Initially, the equipment of the observatory was limited to two small telescopes. The official opening of the Simeiz Observatory as a branch of the Pulkovo Observatory took place in 1912. The activity of the observatory and the systematic observation appeared with the arrival in 1912 of Grigoriy Nikolaevich Neuimin. From 1908 to 1925, 37 small planets, a comet and a large number of variable stars were discovered with the help of an astrograph. In 1925, the meter telescope-reflector was installed in the Simeiz Observatory, with the help of which the spectra of celestial bodies were subsequently studied.

Simeiz Observatory was completely destroyed during the Second World War , and most of the equipment was lost. Subsequently, some tools were found in Germany at the end of the war, including the main telescope, although its mirror was damaged. Nevertheless, on June 30, 1945, a decision was made to restore the observatory, and the Simeiz department of the Pulkovo Observatory was transformed into the already independent Crimean Astrophysical Observatory . In the Simeiz Observatory, near the Black Sea coast , the RT-22 radio telescope with a reflector diameter of 22 meters was built in the autumn of 1967.

On the top platform of the observatory ( Koshka mountain ) in 1975, the Astro Council created the Simeiz station for laser location of the satellite . She is now acting. ^[1] Also next to it in 1988, another laser location station of the satellite Simeiz-1873 was created, equipped with a meter telescope. ^[2]

Since 2005, 5 hectares of plantations in an oyster-mussel farm have been operating on the coastal territory of the observatory ^[3] .

In December 2012, the observatory was threatened with destruction — the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine issued on December 13, 2012 order No. 1415 “On the termination of the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory Research Institute” - on the reorganization of the observatory, as a result of which it would lose the status of a legal entity that would lead to the loss of the protection zone of the observatory, in which any economic activity, especially construction, is prohibited. And also the act on the ground was lost, which would allow for the construction of extraneous objects on the lands of the observatory. The branch of the observatory had especially valuable lands - 17 hectares on the coast ^{[4] [5]} .

After the annexation of the Crimea to the Russian Federation, in the period 2014–2015, an observatory underwent a large-scale reconstruction. The Crimean Astrophysical Observatory was assigned by the Russian authorities to the Federal Agency for Scientific Organizations ^[6] .

• 1908 - Gansky, Alexey Pavlovich - the founder of the observatory
• 1909–1925 - Belyavsky, Sergei Ivanovich - first head
• 1925–1931 - Neuimin, Grigory Nikolaevich
• 1934-1936 - Albitsky, Vladimir Alexandrovich
• 1936-1941 - Neumin, Grigory Nikolaevich
• 2000s - Volvach Alexander Evgenievich (RT-22)

Simeiz before 1941:

• double astrograph (D = 120 mm, installed in 1908, produced by Carl Zeiss, ordered by Maltsov, destroyed during the Second World War)
• Dalmeira Heliometer, production Carl Zeiss (also commissioned by Maltsov)
• 102 cm reflector. Producer: British company Crabbe-Parsons, installed in 1925, first shot in January 1926, spectral observations; destroyed during the Second World War. The damaged mirror is stored in the Scientific.
• Pulkovo zone astrograph - astrometric instrument used to study variable stars
• Photoheliograph. Established in 1932, destroyed during the Second World War.
• Spectrohelioscope Established in 1935, destroyed during the Second World War.
• High-aperture spectrograph for observing the spectrum of the Milky Way - evacuated to Alma-Ata in 1941

Simeiz after 1945:

• 64/70 cm AT-64 telescope, Richter-Slevogt camera (D = 640 mm, f = 900 mm) with a SBIG ST-8 CCD camera. Received on reparation. In 1946, installed in Simeiz, in the 60s transported to the Scientific. Investigation of gas emission nebulae.
• Nebular spectrograph (1947) - the first in the USSR
• The 70-cm AZT-8 telescope (D = 700 mm, f = 3150 mm, F / 16 and F / 40, LOMO, 1964) was installed in Simeiz in 1964. In 1977 he was transported to the Scientific .
• Zeiss-600 (Astro Council SES on Cat Mountain )
• Zeiss-1000 (SES Astrosoveta on Mount Cat , 1987)
• Multiple cameras for satellite observation (Astro Council Satellite Experimental Station)
• SBG camera (D = 43 cm) (SES on Mount Cat )
• LD-1 - laser rangefinder of the Interkosmos satellite (Astrosovet SES, 1978) ^[7]
• “KRIM” or “Simeiz-1873” laser rangefinder , Cassegrain – Kude telescope (D = 1 m, F = 11.6m) (on Cat mountain ) ^{[2] [8]}
• RT-22 - a radio telescope (CrAO, on the bank of Katsiveli , autumn 1967) - worked with RT-22 from Pushchino as VLBI , which gave a resolution of 0.002 coal. seconds at a wavelength of 1.35 cm

• Super long-range radio interferometry (VLBI).
• Multiwave monitoring of active galactic nuclei .
• The study of the activity of the sun and stars.
• Observations of molecular lines in the millimeter range of radio waves.
• Observations of non-stationary stars and galaxies in the centimeter and millimeter ranges
• AES (INASAN station)
• Asteroids (astrometry and photometry)

• Discovery of 150 previously unknown nebulae (Simeiz catalog)
• September 15, 1911 S. I. Belyavsky discovered a relatively bright comet
• At the Simeiz Observatory, 149 asteroids and 8 comets were discovered. ^{[9] [10]}
• Reception of signals from AMS Luna-3 with pictures of the far side of the moon .

• G. A. Shine and his wife PF Shine
• V.A. Ambartsumyan
• N.P. Barabashov
• P.P. Parenago
• O. A. Melnikov
• Vorontsov-Velyaminov, Boris Alexandrovich
• V.P. Tsesevich
• B.V. Kukarkin
• Alexey Pavlovich Gansky
• Sergey Ivanovich Belyavsky
• Grigoriy Nikolaevich Neuimin
• Vladimir Alexandrovich Albitsky
• V.F. Gaza
• Nikolai Nikolaevich Gorkavy

• RT-22 could be seen on the “News” screensaver on the first channel in the Soviet era ^[11]
• RT-22 is a scene in the Soviet feature film The Secret of the Iron Door ( 1970 ), as well as most of the film’s episodes taking place on the island of the wizard, shot near the Simeiz Observatory ^[12] .
• The 102 cm reflector was the largest telescope in Europe and the USSR at the time of installation (1925) and the first telescope to exceed the diameter of a meter in the USSR.
• Although the observatory had a very small astrograph (120 mm), Simeiz ranked second in the world before the war (from 1912 to 1914) in the number of observations of small planets and open asteroids, second only to the Heidelberg Observatory (Germany), which had an astrograph with a lens 500 mm. ^[13]
• In honor of the founder of the observatory Nikolai Sergeevich Maltsov, an asteroid (749) of Malzoviy opened in 1913

• CrAO history
• History of the Crimean Observatory , P. P. Dobronravin, “Earth and the Universe”
• Laser observations at the Simeiz Observatory
• Laser rangefinder in Simeiz
• Laser observations at the Katsiveli Observatory
• History of the observatory

• List of objects discovered by the Crimean astronomers
• List of astronomical instruments