Leningrad Astronomical Observatory

(AOLGU), a scientific research institution of Leningrad State University.

The Leningrad Astronomical Observatory was founded in 1881 as a training observatory of the University of St. Petersburg. However, it soon became a center for organizing all the scientific research in astronomy and geodesy at the university. The observatory has (1973) a theoretical astrophysics laboratory, an observational astrophysics laboratory, a solar physics and radio astronomy laboratory, a celestial mechanics and stellar dynamics laboratory, and an astrometry laboratory with a station for tracking artificial earth satellites. A southern branch— the Burakan Astrophysical Observatory in Armenia—was created in 1961 in order to conduct astrophysical observations.

The Leningrad Astronomical Observatory has a 46-cm telescope, a 51-cm telescope, and a 64-cm telescope, among others, equipped with polarizing and spectral equipment and with modern radiation sensors for the visible and infrared regions of the spectrum. It also has a solar telescope with a diffraction spectrograph, a photoelectric transit instrument, a training radio telescope, and other equipment. The observatory is well known for studies in celestial mechanics, theoretical astrophysics, observational astrophysics, stellar dynamics, time service, and other branches of astronomy. It has been publishing Trudy since 1916.