Skalnaté Pleso Observatory: Opening in 1943 and Solar and Comet Observation

Skalnaté Pleso Observatory stands at about 1,800 meters in Slovakia’s High Tatras. Its founder, Antonín Bečvář, originally worked in meteorology. When he came to Štrbské Pleso in 1937, he was already observing with his own telescope. He sought to combine mountain observing conditions with a professional observatory.

The cable car to the lake made transport of people and equipment possible, but its vibration interfered with telescope observations. The building was therefore placed higher up, away from the station. Construction began in the early 1940s with fundraising support from the Slovak Štefánik Astronomical Society. It was completed in 1943, with Bečvář as director.

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The observatory dates the beginning of its scientific work to a solar observation at 7 a.m. on September 19, 1943. The surviving monthly table names both the former station and Skalnaté Pleso as observing locations. A dividing line in the table and the record of Bečvář’s move to the new observatory on September 15 establish that the observation on the nineteenth was made there.

The entry recorded one group with twenty-two sunspots and a relative sunspot number of thirty-two. Its sequence number, 3583, continued the numbering of Bečvář’s solar observations begun in 1929. Entries organized by date, time and number incorporated the new observatory’s first scientific activity into an existing continuous record.

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The main instrument in the large dome was a Zeiss reflecting telescope with a 60-centimeter aperture. It had belonged to Stará Ďala Observatory, the station now at Hurbanovo. Border changes in 1938 forced its removal, first to Prešov and subsequently to Skalnaté Pleso. The new observatory thus received instruments and books accumulated over years at the earlier station.

Installation of this reflector began on September 27, 1943 and finished shortly before Christmas, after which it joined the nighttime program. The smaller dome housed Bečvář’s reflector and a 13-centimeter refractor for photographic guiding, solar observations and other work. Different apertures and functions allowed daytime and nighttime projects to be organized.

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Sunspot data continued through existing international exchange channels to the Swiss Federal Observatory in Zurich under William Brunner. Local observations entered international sunspot statistics without restarting Bečvář’s observing sequence after the move.

Comet searches became an important postwar activity. Somet binocular telescopes acquired in 1946 provided a wide field, with Ľudmila Pajdušáková, Antonín Mrkos and others searching. Discoveries required measurements of position and tracking of motion, with results circulated through specialist journals and International Astronomical Union announcements. The nearby station on Lomnický štít also participated in this work.

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In 1950, administration moved downhill to Tatranská Lomnica, and the observatory became a branch of Prague’s Central Astronomical Institute. In 1953 it joined the newly established Slovak Academy of Sciences. The mountain station continued observing, while its journal, first published in 1955, provided a continuing outlet for results.

Stellar research subsequently moved from photographic plates toward photoelectric measurement. In 1961, Jozef Tremko and collaborators in Prague promoted installing photoelectric photometry on the 60-centimeter telescope to study variable stars through changes in brightness over time. A new telescope of the same aperture replaced the original in 1978. Foundation in 1943, later instrument renewal and construction of other stations were successive stages.

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