THE S H E M A K H A A S T R O P H Y S I C A L O B S E R V A T O R Y OF

THE A C A D E M Y OF S C I E N C E S OF TH E A Z E R B A I J A N S.S.R.

(Report f r o m Solar Institute)

R. E. GUSEINOV Baku, Azerbaijan, U.S.S.R.

(Received 13 July, 1970)

1. Location and History

The Shemakha Astrophysical Observatory (q~ = 40 ~ 47', 2 = 3 h 14m23 s East) is located on the southern slope of the Great Caucasus (al t i tude= 1400 m) and at 150 km distance from Baku.

The Observatory was officially organized at the beginning of 1960 but the solar observations, which were essentially the first astronomical observations there, began in the middle of 1957 as a part of the programme ot the IGY. These solar observations were carried out with a photosphere-chromospheric telescope and the solar patrol programme still continues.

2. The Photosphere-Chromospheric Telescope

The photospheric tube with 130-ram objective diameter permits one to get a photo- heliogram with a 78-ram image of the Sun. The chromospheric tube of the telescope (objective diameter is 65 ram, focal length 680 ram) in the combination with a bire- fringent filter and film camera makes it possible to patrol and obtain solar films in the Ha-line.

The cinematography of the Sun and flare patrol with this telescope revealed many characteristic features of the flare development about which there has been much information published in Solnechnye Dannye. On the basis of this observational mate- rial Guseinov (1961, 1965) suggested the possibility of using the theory ol the strong gas-dynamical explosion to the initial-premaximum phase of the chromospheric flare development.

3. The Horizontal Solar Telescope

The Shemakha Astrophysical Observatory is the initiator in using the horizontal solar telescope with a great spectrograph in the U.S.S.R. Such a telescope was for the first time installed at Shemakha in 1962 and then some similar telescopes were placed in other Soviet observatories. The diameter of its coelostat secondary and primary mirror is 440 ram, the solar-image diameter in the Newtonian focus is 160 mm and in the Cassegrain focus it is ~ 600 mm.

Solar Physics 16 (1971) 490~492. All Rights Reserved Copyright �9 1971 I)3: D. Reidel Pttblishing Company, Dordreeht-Holland

THE SttEMAKHA ASTROPHYSICAL OBSERVATORY 491

The Cassegrain focus is used for the study of granules and granulation fields by photographic and photoelectric methods. Lately the television technique was also been used for this purpose. The normal and high-speed photographic method revealed the real structure of the granulation field (Kerimbekov, 1969, 1969).

The Newtonian focus is used for spectral and magnetic observations. The auto- collimated spectrograph (with the grating of 150 x 120 mm ruled area and 600 lines per mm) is intended to operate in the second order where the dispersion is nearly 1 A/mm. With the spectrograph we get spectrograms and make visual observations of the magnetic field of sunspots.

An original piece of equilzment was designed by S. Mamedov and E. Orudzhev and adjusted to this spectrograph. It obtains the image of a selected solar region by a contin!aous move of the solar image with fixed velocity across the slit. The line contour is preserved. This method has been applied to observations of spicules (Mamedov and Orudzhev, 1969).

With the help of a special optical adjuster Aslanov (1964) determined the velocity of solar rotation and its dependence on the optical depth where the lines are effectively formed by a spectroscopic method.

4. Other Studies

On the basis of a spectrophotometric analysis of the flare spectrograms which were kindly lent to us by the astronomers of the Ond~ejov observatory (Czechoslovakia), Guseinov showed that dynamical processes (in particular, turbulence, translational movement and directed expansion of the flare layers with a velocity gradient) are one of the main factors defining the physical conditions in solar flares. He has also found that the flares of the coronal origin which are radically different from proper chromo- spheric flares are the result of a compression of coronal condensations (Guseinov, 1966, 1967).

Photoelectric recordings of spectra in the red and near infrared regions with high resolution obtained with the double monochromator of the Pulkovo Observatory made it possible for Gasanalizade (1963, 1966) to study shifts and asymmetries of infrared lines in comparison with the optical region. He has shown that the wave- lengths of the infrared Nit lines 7713.310, 7727.616 and 7788.933 A considered as the international standards in the solar spectrum cannot be used for this purpose because of the great asymmetry of their profiles.

A rather convenient scheme was developed for the computation of the corrections to the observed velocities for relative motions of the observer while obtaining the spectra, and a new curve for the 'limb effect' was obtained (Salmana-Zade, 1966).

Using the data of radio observations of the solar eclipses and daily radio obser- vations of the Sun obtained by different authors within a wide range of wavelength (2 = 3 cm-50 cm), Abbasov (1967 a, b) investigated characteristics of the spot radio emission intensities and a shift of the spectrum maximum as a group passes over the solar disk.

492 R.E. GUSEINOV

5. Publications

The results obtained by the scientific workers of the Solar Physics and Radioas t rono-

my Depar tment of the Shemakha Astrophysical Observatory have been published in

Astronomicheski j Zhurnal, Solnechnye Dannye, Doklady Akademii Nauk S S S R , Vest-

n ik Leningradskogo Uni~,ersiteta, Trudy and Soobchenija Shemakhinskoi Observatorii,

Izvest i ja Akademi i N a u k Azerb. S S R , Solar Physics, and others.

References

Abbasov, A. R. : 1967a, Dokl. Akad. Nauk SSSR 174, 538. Abbasov, A. R. : 1967b, Astron. Zh. 44, 1326. Aslanov, I. A.: 1964, Tr. Astron. Obs. LGU 21, 53. Gasanalizade, A. G. : 1963, Soln. Dann. No. 4. Gasanalizade, A. G.: 1966, Soln. Dann. No. 12, 58. Guseinov, R. E.: 1961, Astron. Zh. 38. Guseinov, R. E. : 1965, Soobeh. Shemakhinskoi Astrofiz. Obs. 5. Guseinov, R. E.: 1966, Astron. Zh. 43, 1159. Guseinov, R. E.: 1967, Izv. GAO Akad. Nauk SSSR, No. 183. Kerimbekov, M. B.: 1968, Soln. Dann. No. 11, 94. Kerimbekov, M. B.: 1969, Izv. Akad. Nauk Azerb. SSSR (set. fiz.-tech.-mat, nauk) 1. Mamedov, S. G. and Orudzhev, E. Sh.: 1969, Solar Phys. 6, 41. Salman-Zade, R. H.: 1966, Vesta. LGU No. 1.