Observatory
(astronomer.) - an institution designed to produce systematic series of observations of celestial bodies; it is usually erected on high terrain, from which a great horizons would open in all directions. Each O. has a personal staff of observers and calculators, telescopes and other instruments for making observations and special rooms for instruments. Since the need for astronomical observations for time sharing and for agricultural work was recognized even in the very first days of the emergence of human culture, the beginning of O.'s device is lost in ancient times. The personal personnel of the former O. were priests and ministers of religion. The Chaldeans built ziggurats or observatory temples; from the Chinese, as branch branches of a mathematical tribunal, from time immemorial O. existed in Beijing, Luoyang and other cities; Egyptian pyramids, judging by the orientation of their sides according to the countries of the world, were also erected with the aim of producing famous astronomical observations; traces of the existence of former O. are found in India, Persia, Peru, and Mexico. In addition to large governmental O.s, in ancient times private ones were also erected, for example, O. Eudoxus, who was very famous (see) in the Book. The main tools of ancient O. were: the gnomon (see) for systematic observations of the midday heights of the Sun, sundials and clepsydra (see) for measuring time; without the aid of instruments, we observed the Moon and its phases, planets, moments of sunrise and sunset of the stars, their passage through the meridian, solar and lunar eclipses. The first O. in the modern sense of the word was the famous museum in Alexandria, organized by Ptolemy Philadelphus. A number of astronomers such as Aristide, Timocharis, Hipparchus, Aristarchus, Eratosthenes, Geminus, Ptolemy and others raised this institution to an unprecedented height. Here, for the first time, they began to use tools with divided circles. Aristarchus installed a copper circle on the museum’s portico in the equatorial plane and with its help he directly observed the times of the passage of the Sun through the equinoxes. Hipparchus invented astrolabe (see) with two mutually perpendicular circles and diopters (see) for observation. Ptolemy introduced quadrants (see) and installed them using a plumb line. The transition from full circles to quadrants was, in essence, a step backward, but the authority of Ptolemy kept the quadrants on O. until the days of Römer, who proved that in full circles, observations are made more accurately; however, the quadrants were completely abandoned only at the beginning of the 19th century. After the destruction of the Alexandrian Museum with all its collections and tools, O. began to be settled again by the Arabs and the peoples subjugated by them; O. appeared in Baghdad, Cairo, Maraga (Nasr-Eddin), Samarkand (Ulug-bei), etc. The Arab scholar Geber arranged O. in Seville, the oldest in Europe. Since the beginning of the XVI century. it was in Europe that O. began to be built, first private and then government: Regiomontan built O. in Nuremberg, William IV, Landgrass of Hesse, in Kassel (1561) and others. Famous Tycho Brahe (see) all his fortune, more than 100,000 crowns, used for the construction and tools of his O. on the island of Gwen, near Copenhagen. He was the first in Europe to use metal tools with circles divided after 1 '. Private O. Hevelius also enjoyed great fame (see). The first government O. in Europe was built in 1637-56. in Copenhagen. Before the fire of 1728, it had the shape of a tower 115 Danish feet high and 48 feet in diameter. O. herself was placed on the top of the tower, where a spiral road led, hollow rising inside the walls. It is known that on this road in 1716 Peter the Great rode on horseback, and Catherine I in a carriage drawn by six horses. Römer also noticed the disadvantages of this high tower for the installation of devices, and he invented the passenger tool he installed in his private O. at ground level and away from the road. Parisian O. was laid in 1667 and completed in 1671 at the insistence of Colbert, with generous funds allocated by Louis XVI; it was built by the famous Perrault (Claude Perrault), the architect of the Louvre. Grinich O. was built by Ren (see) and opened after the Paris one in 1675. The decree of the English queen clearly and definitely expressed the purpose of O.'s device, which she still pursues today: to compile accurate catalogs of stars and tables of movements of the moon, sun and planets to perfect the art of navigation. Paris and Grinich O. were abundantly equipped with the most accurate, for their time, instruments and served as models for the construction of other, later O. in the cities: Leiden (1690), Berlin (1711), Bologna (1714), Utrecht (1726 ), Pisa (1730), Uppsala (1739), Stockholm (1746), Lund (1753), Milan (1765), Oxford (1772), Edinburgh (1776), Dublin (1783), etc. By the end of the XVIII century. in Europe there were more than 100 O., and now their number reaches 380. More or less satisfactory O. exist at every university and every polytechnic institute. In recent years, the number of private O.s arranged by amateur astronomers has been growing especially rapidly. a huge number of them are in England and in the United States, where entire capital is donated to them. Of these O., Likovskaya near San Francisco and Yerkskaya near Chicago are especially remarkable, with the world's largest magnificent refractors with lenses of 36 and 40 inches in diameter. The first O. in Russia was founded by Peter the Great, simultaneously with the Academy of Sciences, in 1725 in St. Petersburg (opened under Catherine I); it is an octagonal tower, existing to this day over the building of the library of the academy, on Vasilievsky Island. Its first director was Delisle (see). In 1747, it burned down and was rebuilt and improved again by Delil's successors - Gainzius and Grishov. The latter drew attention to the inconvenience of O.'s location in the middle of the city and on a tall building: the smoke from the chimneys of the surrounding houses hides the horizon, and the instruments tremble from passing carriages. He even drew up a project for the construction of O. outside the city, but his premature death in 1760 halted the implementation of the project. The next director Rumovsky proposed a new project - to build O. in Tsarskoye Selo; this project was not realized only because of the death of Empress Catherine II. However, the shortcomings of academic O. were recognized by all subsequent astronomers. In 1830, professor of St. George's University V. Struve was sent abroad by the Highest Command with a special purpose to inspect the most important O. of Western Europe and to develop a new Russian project. Around the same time, Count Kushelev — Bezborodko offered a plot of his dacha on the Vyborg side as a gift under O., but this place was considered uncomfortable due to its proximity to the city. The appointed special commission stopped the choice on the top of Pulkovo Mountain, indicated by Emperor Nicholas I himself and lying south of the capital, 14 versts from the Moscow outpost, at an altitude of 248 feet above sea level. To develop a detailed draft of the new O. in 1833, a committee was formed of academicians Vishnevsky, Parrot, Struve and Fuss, under the chairmanship of Admiral Greig, who had already built O. in Nikolaev several years before. The project of the building and its implementation were entrusted to the architect A.P. Bryullov (see), and the instruments were simultaneously ordered in Munich by Ertel, Reichenbach and Merz and Maler, in Hamburg - to the Repsold brothers. Bookmark Pulkovo O. took place on June 21, 1835, and the solemn consecration of the finished buildings - August 7, 1839. The total cost of the construction reached 2100500 rubles. bank notes, including 40,000 rubles here. banknotes issued to state peasants who had their estates in an area alienated under O. of 20 acres. According to § 2 of the charter of O., its purpose is "to produce: a) constant and as complete observations as possible, which tend to succeed in astronomy, b) corresponding observations necessary for geographical enterprises in the Empire and for scientific trips made, and c) O. must to contribute by all measures to the improvement of practical astronomy, in its adaptations to geography and navigation, and to bring the case to practical exercises in the geographical determination of places. " The originally constructed buildings were actually O., with three towers at the top, and 2 houses on the sides for the residence of astronomers. Subsequently, several small towers for small tools were erected, including a completely separate small O. for surveyors, a new large tower south of the former and an astrophysical laboratory. The middle of the main building is occupied by a round hall with a bust of the founder of O. - Emperor Nicholas I, portraits of subsequent emperors and famous astronomers. Above this room is a library, which currently has 15,000 volumes and about 20,000 brochures of astronomical content. Main tools: the new large 30-inch Repsold refractor with A. Clark lens and devices for spectroscopic observations and photographing celestial bodies, the original 15-inch Merz and Mahler refractor, a large passive instrument, Ertel’s vertical circle. Repsold meridian circle, Repsold’s pass-through tool installed in the 1st vertical, Merz and Mahler heliometer, astrograph, small refractors, astrophotometric instruments, comet detectors, clocks, chronometers, surveying instruments, etc. There is a mechanical workshop for repairing instruments in O. run by a special mechanic. According to the original staff in Pulkovo O. it was supposed: director, 4 astronomers and a caretaker, according to the new staff of 1862 it was supposed to: director, vice director, 4 senior and 2 associate astronomers, scientific secretary, 2 calculators and an undetermined number of supernumerary astronomers of young people who graduated from university and preparing to devote themselves to astronomy. The first director was V. Struve, from 1862 to 1890 his son O. Struve, then F. Bredikhin (until 1895), and now O. Baklund. The northern latitude of Pulkovo is not favorable for observing the zodiac zone of the sky, and therefore the observatory has set itself the main task of observing the stars to compile the most accurate catalog. The so-called "Pulkovo stars" now serve as the basis for deducing the position of other stars observed on other O. astronomers. Pulkovskaya O. for its nearly 60-year existence has published 16 large volumes of "Observations" and about 500 works published separately and in astronomical journals. Other Russian O. cannot even be compared with Pulkovskaya either in the number of observers or in the richness of their instruments. The most important of them: the military in Tashkent (now director D. Gedeonov), the naval in Nikolaev (I. Cortazzi) and Kronstadt (V. Fuss) and the university in St. Petersburg (S. Glazenap), Moscow (V. Cerazsky), Kazan (D. Dubyago), Yuryev [Before the construction of Pulkovskaya, O. Derptskaya (now Yuryevskaya) was the best in Russia (see Struve).] (G. Levitsky), Warsaw (I. Vostokov), Kiev (M. Handrikov), Kharkov (L. Struve), Odessa (A. Kononovich) and Helsingfors (A. Donner). The former academic O. in St. Petersburg is closed, and its instruments were transported to Pulkovo, where, in a special gallery around the new tower of a large refractor, an astronomical museum is arranged. On the attached tables, in addition to the general views of O., a section of the tower of the large refractor Pulkovo O is shown.
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