Zelenchuk Observatory
The Selentschuk Observatory ( Russian Зеленчукская обсерватория officially Специальная астрофизическая обсерватория РАН , "Special Astrophysical Observatory of the RAN ") is the largest and highest-altitude observatory Russia (2070m above sea level).
It is located about 30 km south of Stanitsa Zelenchukskaya (Republic of Karachay-Cherkessia ) in the northern Caucasus and houses the optical BTA 6-meter telescope and the RATAN 600 radio telescope, which is located on the outskirts of Zelenchukskaya .
BTA-6
The main instrument of this observatory, the six-meter reflector telescope BTA-6 (Russian Большой Телескоп Азимутальный , large azimuthal telescope ) was the largest telescope in the world at the time of its completion in 1975 until the beginning of the 1990s (before that it was the 5-meter telescope Reflecting telescope from Mount Palomar , USA). However, there were some problems with the 42- tonne borosilicate glass mirror , so that it had to be replaced in 1978 due to a crack. The six-meter telescope of the Zelenchuk Observatory was the first large telescope that was not mounted parallactically (equatorial) but azimuthally . This brought a substantial saving in weight, but the necessity of an automatic image field rotation for sky recordings. For the tracking (compensation of the earth's rotation) the instrument received a computer control from the beginning.
RATAN 600
The RATAN 600 is a radio telescope with a diameter of 576 meters.
Web links
- The Special Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) sao.ru, accessed March 4, 2011
Coordinates: 43 ° 38 ′ 48.6 " N , 41 ° 26 ′ 25.6" E