Talk:Special Astrophysical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Science

Name Change
This article's name should be "Special Astrophysical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences" (sciences, plural), but I don't know how to change the title. Perhaps someone else knows how? Patrickwooldridge (talk) 19:54, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Untitled
Would a frame grab from the BTA-6 in-dome webcam qualify as fair use? There's no copyright information on the webcam page. I would imagine would be the most appropriate.--BillC 11:13, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

If you want to know you can ask by email, I'm sure they wouldn't mind.

'Largest telescope in the world?'
Discussion below was copied from User talk:84.34.132.226

Re: Zelenchukskaya, I thought that all mirrors larger than the BTA-6 were segmented, or have some solid mirrors a greater diameter? --BillC 12:31, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
 * After reading List of largest optical reflecting telescopes, I stand corrected. --BillC 13:00, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

The BTA-6 is the last big mirror of old "stiff" approach, and ever since mirrors have been placed on dynamic actively controlled supports, and thinner larger diameter glass plates are feasible for actual telescopes. -- Oh2mqk 9 Apr 2006
 * Now that sounds more like it. If we have a reference for this, it should be in the article. --BillC 07:38, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Code 114 or 115?
Is the SAO IAU code 114 or 115? See the List of observatory codes. And what is the relation between the SAO and the Kazan University Observatory (Обсерватории Казанского Университета); V. P. Engel'gardt Astronomical Observatory (Астрономической Обсерватории им. В. П. Энгельгардта)? Urhixidur 04:27, 28 April 2007 (UTC) Formally SAO and Mountain station of Kazan University Observatory aka V. P. Engel'gardt Astronomical Observatory are two different organizations, they are just situated right next to each other...Kirx (talk) 17:11, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

WTF ?
Zelentchukskaya is the town (actually big village) 20 km north of Nizhniy Arkhyz, named after the river Zelenchuk that goes through Nizhniy Arkhyz. This article needs to be renamed, and there isn't much to say about Zelenchukskaya.
 * You may have a point here. I am the original creator of this article and, if I recall, I chose the name based upon the name given by the corresponding Encyclopaedia Britannia article. The Russian article is named 'Special Astrophysical Observatory RAN'. Perhaps Zelenchuk Observatory might be a better name. Thoughts? &mdash; BillC talk 00:05, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I would drop the "Zelenchuk", it's the name used in popular astronomy magazines. People in the village of Nizhniy Arkhiz call the observatory SAO, and the complete name is SAO-RAN. RAN stands for Russian Academy of Science so you could name it SAO-RAS. Or better, to be complete "Special Astrophysical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Science", and then a redirect for SAO-RAS. Also in your article you mention the small town of Zelenchuk. It's not exact. Zelenchuk is the name of the river. The town is the town "of the Zelenchuk", Zelenchukskaya. There isn't much to say about Zelenchukskaya. It's about 10000 people and pretty rural. You can also add in your article that the observatory has 2 comfortable hotels (one in the village and one within walking distance of BTA) and can therefore be visited. If you want to add something about the science, www.sao.ru is the best source although most of it is not updated very often. There are many things to say about this observatory, feel free to ask if you would like to complete this article. Because of the popular name Zelenchuk you could make a redirect page at Zelenchuk, or better make a disambiguation page saying that Zelenchuk is the river, Zelenchukskaya a town on the Zelenchuk, and then add that the observatory above the Zelenchuk is often called Zelenchuk outside Russia.

...Oh, and I'm positive they wouldn't mind if you use a webcam shot of the BTA. But if you're really worried, send a short email to the email you'll find on http://w0.sao.ru/Doc-en/About/

NPOV
you have described this magnificent achievment as a peace of garbage.. you have included a link to a typcal cold war propaganda... first of all, initial result were not disapointing at all... this telescope was the best and the most modern at the world when its made and many years after... it is true that second mirror has better finish than first one but that doesnt mean that first mirror is so bad as you maked sound... it is not that dramatic difference... first mirror finish was 91% light to 1 arc second, second mirror finish was 91% to 0.8 arc second.

the first mirror was polished to the 0.01 μm accuracy but few little imperfections on the glass (scraches) caused some minor problems and thats why the mirror was changed... but anyhow it is not that dramatical.. they could leave the first mirror it would work fine... this few cracks were more like surface deep scraches.. and i dont see why is so important to empahisize first mirror imperfections when issue is corrected with second mirror which have finish quality and surface accuracy same as modern big mirror like subaru telesope built 25 years later.

it is normal that second mirror has better finish due to lesons learnt in making of first one, but again first one is also good...

the biggest problem of this telescope is its location and meteorogical conditions.. (sadly this is best site in russia) those temperatures changes make more problems than difference in first and second mirrors... with ideal conditions like in hawaii observatories this telescope would perform much better... it can achieve 0.6 arcsec, but it rarely makes better than 1 arcsec due bad weather... harsh enviroment is the biggest problem.. you can put any other telesope in this loaction and you will have the same problems...

it is decided to send first mirror (stored at observatory from 1979.) back to the the factory (it arrived in june 4th 2007.) to be thinned and repolished for the cost of 150 million rubbles and it would be put back on the telescope after its done. this will reduce the mirror weight and hopefully reduce influence of temperature changes... -=HyPeRzOnD=- 08:29, 21 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I concur. Please make necessary changes to tone down Cold War propaganda. --Ghirla-трёп- 23:33, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh come on. The first mirror had numerous flaws that were "corrected" by covering them up with black fabric. The fact that they replaced it, at some expense one imagines, demonstrates how bad it was. To pretend that this is not a serious problem, or that the mirror was "good" as you state above, is precisely the sort of "Cold War propaganda" you're complaining about.

You point out that it can achieve 0.6 arseconds, but that's the first I've heard of this, the two independent references out there say 0.8. So let's compare that number with other instruments, comparing their diffraction-limited performance, their optical quality, and their astronomical seeing, both average and 10 percentile:

name      limit   optical av seeing  10% seeing BTA-6     0.023   0.8     ~2         1.5 Wilson 60 0.092   0.5     ~1         0.5 (getting worse) Hale 200  0.026   >0.5    (somewhat worse than Wilson) CFHT      0.039   0.2     0.4        0.25

These numbers are taken from the CFHT manual and the Mount Wilson historical seeing document. The BTA numbers are from the S&T article that we're all reading.

If we concern ourselves purely with numbers for the optics themselves, BTA is outperformed by telescopes that are 70 years older than it, and it's dramatically outperformed by the CFHT of the same era (1979). When you add in the site constraints in terms of astronomical seeing, it's downright terrible. BTA gets astronomical seeing at 1.5 only 10% of the time; in comparison Wilson used to get 0.5 at 10%, and even with LA encroaching on it that's been reduced to perhaps 1. And then there's the CFHT again, which is six times better.

So yeah, given these numbers BTA can safely be described as a "peace of garbage" without too much hyperbole (not my words mind you). If we don't mention these very real problems, we're simply whitewashing the article, making it non-NPOV all over again.

Maury (talk) 00:30, 1 February 2008 (UTC)