Pulkovo Observatory - Early Years

Early Years

The observatory was opened in 1839. Originally, it was a brainchild of the German/Russian astronomer Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve, who would become its first director (in 1861, his son Otto Wilhelm von Struve succeeded him). The architect was Alexander Bryullov. The observatory was equipped with the state-of-the-art devices, one of them being the a 38-cm (15 in.) aperture refractor, one of the large refractors in the world at that time (see Great Refractor). In 1885, the observatory was equipped with 30-inch (76 cm) refractor, which was one of the biggest refractors in the world, until the 36" (91 cm) telescope at the Lick Observatory in California a few years later, both of which were built by Alvan Clark & Sons in Massachusetts. The principal line of work of the observatory consisted of determination of coordinates of stars and astronomical constants, such as precessions, nutations, aberrations and refractions, and also discovering and measuring double stars. Observatory’s activities have also been connected to the geographical study of the territory of Russia and development of navigation. The star catalogues, containing the most precise positions of 374, and then 558 stars, were made for the years 1845, 1865, 1885, 1905 and 1930.

By the 50th anniversary of the Observatory, they had built an astrophysical laboratory with a mechanical workshop and installed the Europe’s largest refractor, a 76-cm refractor (30 inch). Astrophysical research really gained momentum with the appointment of Feodor Bredikhin as a director of the Observatory in 1890 and transfer of Aristarkh Belopolsky from the Moscow Observatory, an expert in stellar spectroscopy and solar research. In 1923, they installed a big Littrow spectrograph, and in 1940 – a horizontal solar telescope, manufactured at a Leningrad factory. After having received an astrograph in 1894, the observatory began its work on astrophotography. In 1927, the Observatory received a zone astrograph and with its help the Russian astronomers catalogued the stars of the near-polar areas of the sky. Regular observation of movements of celestial poles began with the construction of the zenith telescope in 1904. In 1920, the Observatory started transmitting the exact time by radio signals. The observatory participated in the basic geodesic work, namely in measuring degrees of the arc of the meridian from the Danube to the Arctic Ocean (until 1851), and in triangulation of Spitsbergen in 1899–1901. Military geodesists and hydrographers used to work at the Observatory as interns. The Pulkovo Meridian, which passes through the center of the main building of the Observatory and is located at 30°19,6‘ east of Greenwich, was the point of departure for all former geographical maps of Russia.

In order to observe the southern stars that could not be seen on the observatory’s latitude, the scientists organized 2 affiliates. One of them was an astrophysical station in the Crimean town of Simeiz (Simeiz Observatory), which had been organized on the basis of a private observatory presented to the Pulkovo Observatory by an astronomy lover N.S.Maltsev in 1908. The other affiliate of the Pulkovo Observatory was an astrometric station in Nikolaev – a former observatory of the Department of the Navy, (today’s Nikolaev Astronomical Observatory).