Simeiz Observatory: The 1908 Donation and Early Observations

Simeiz Observatory began as a private facility on Crimea’s southern coast. Astronomy enthusiast Nikolai Sergeyevich Maltsov started building it on Mount Koshka above Simeiz in 1900. It later connected with Pulkovo Observatory near St. Petersburg, where bright summer nights and cloudy weather limited photographic, spectroscopic and solar observations. Pulkovo sought a southern base with more suitable conditions.

In 1906, Aleksey Gansky and Gavriil Tikhov surveyed observing conditions in Crimea and noticed Maltsov’s buildings. The resulting contacts brought a station created for a private interest into a professional astronomical institution’s development plans.

References: [1] [5] [2]

Maltsov offered the observatory as a gift in 1908, and Pulkovo director Oskar Backlund promoted its acceptance. The donation included land, two towers with rotating domes, accommodation and observing equipment. Government approval and property documentation were completed during that year. The date marks the private facility’s entry into the Pulkovo system and the development of early observations.

The inventory included a 6-inch Zeiss refractor, two photographic objectives with apertures of 120 millimeters and focal lengths of 600 millimeters, a 4-inch refractor, a spectrograph and precision clocks. The double astrograph formed from the photographic objectives was particularly important: it enabled a small-aperture station to preserve celestial images for repeated measurement.

References: [1] [4]

Gansky installed and adjusted instruments in 1908 and left images of the Sun, Moon and Andromeda nebula. After he drowned that year, Orbinsky organized his records and plates and sent them to Pulkovo. Sergey Belyavsky took up resident work in 1909. In his first year, he exposed and registered 234 plates and processed 114; results on double stars and Halley’s Comet appeared in Pulkovo publications.

Accepting the property did not simultaneously establish staffing and funding. The Simeiz branch received statutory funds and positions in 1912. A new building completed in late 1913 provided residences for astronomers and a mechanic, improving conditions for long-term work and life at the station.

References: [2]

Comets were important early targets. Photographs of Comet Morehouse in 1908 allowed Tikhov and Orbinsky to study wavelike tail structures, cloudlike features and their motion. Images recorded changing form as well as celestial position.

Belyavsky discovered comet 1911 IV in 1911, and Simeiz continued photographing its envelopes and changing tail shapes. A comet discovered on plates by Grigory Neujmin in 1913 initially resembled a minor planet. Repeated observations and brightness records helped astronomers identify such objects and track subsequent changes.

References: [3]

Simeiz joined an international minor-planet observing program in 1912, with Neujmin as its principal observer. Work included measuring known objects’ coordinates, checking their orbits and searching for unknown bodies. Belyavsky, Vladimir Albitsky and Pelageya Shajn later also participated.

The review of minor-planet research records that the 12-centimeter double astrograph used two-hour exposures to reach approximately magnitude 14, often recording two to four minor planets on a plate. Detecting an image had to be followed by position measurement, calculation and continued tracking to establish a reliable orbit. Initial detections and objects eventually assigned permanent numbers therefore represent different counts.

References: [4]

The one-meter reflecting telescope that arrived in 1925 expanded the research program. Grigory Shajn helped install it and worked with Albitsky on stellar spectra and radial velocities. These developments belonged to an expansion beyond the early small photographic station.

The Second World War severely damaged the Simeiz facilities. In 1945, the Soviet Academy of Sciences established the independent Crimean Astrophysical Observatory on their foundation. A new principal observing base was subsequently built at Nauchnyi while the Mount Koshka station was restored. The postwar institution thus combined a new main site with a restored older station and extended beyond the private facilities accepted in 1908.

References: [5]