Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
Oct 2001
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2001mkt..book....3b&link_type=abstract
Miklós Konkoly Thege (1842-1916). 100 Years of Observational Astronomy and Astrophysics - A collection of papers on the history
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Scientific paper
The Astronomical Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences celebrated its centenary on the 20th of May 1999. Due to several political and economical crises it was not so easy in Central Europe in the past century to produce scientific results up to the prevailing international standards. Regular professional astronomical activity started in Hungary with the foundation of the university in Nagyszombat near to the present Bratislava. In 1777 the university was transferred to Buda and an observatory was installed in the tower of the royal palace. At the beginning of the 19th century, in 1815, a new university observatory was opened on the top of the Gellert Hill. The observatory was completely destroyed during the siege of the Buda castle in 1849. The other professional astronomical observatory of Karoly Nagy at the town Bicske, completed just at the beginning of the war in 1848-49, was never allowed to make a contribution. A new start for Hungarian astronomy came from Miklós Konkoly Thege when he established his private observatory in Ógyalla. A significant step in the life of the observatory was when it became the property of the state on the 20th of May, 1899. Astronomical photometry was chosen as the main research field of the new national observatory. The first world war led to the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire and resulted in the splitting of Ógyalla from Hungary. The instrumentation was transferred to Hungary and the government decided in 1921 to build a new institute on the Schwabian Hills close to Buda. Research on variable stars became the main field of the new institute, in particular the study of period changes of short-period cepheids. After the second world war solar physics was restarted in the institute and as a result a new independent observatory was formed in 1958. A significant development was the introduction of photoelectric observations. In the fifties a decision was made on building a new mountain station on Piszkesteto of the Matra mountain NE from Budapest. In 1982 the solar physics observatory joined the national observatory again and the Astronomical Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences was formed. The change of the political system in 1990 removed the embargo for products of high technology and a significant modernization was carried out in the institute. The centenary is an important occasion for thinking on the main issues of strength keeping our institute in existence.
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