More than 750 asteroids were discovered in Crimea using a modernized Soviet telescope

When the Soviet Union and the world in general learned how to make large telescopes with diameters of 5 m or more, it turned out that such instruments were very heavy, and therefore it was necessary to come up with some kind of system in order to create new generations of lighter telescopes. Otherwise, it is simply impossible to work with them: it is difficult to aim at a target, and a lot of problems arise with servicing the telescope. Therefore, segmented optics technology was born: when we create one large mirror from many individual segments. It was this technology that was tested at the Synthesis telescope in the 70s and was successfully implemented. At the same time, more complex technologies were implemented, for example, they tried to make adaptive optics technology, but these experiments were not as successful, — he said.

Astrophysicists carry out this work on the Synthesis telescope, a Soviet experiment to create segmented optics.

Telescope modernization

According to the scientist, the process of development of segmented optics technology stopped with the collapse of the USSR, and the Sintez telescope was left without funding and unused. As a result, the device was mothballed for about 30 years, until in 2018 a group of scientists led by Nazarov received permission to modernize the telescope. He had two ideas: to create a scientific instrument capable of obtaining modern scientific data, and to pay tribute to his ancestors, Soviet history, and the technology of segmented optics, which was one of the first implemented in the USSR, and has now spread throughout the world and is used in many devices.

We managed to create a control system for this telescope, we wrote the software, restored the Soviet mechanics, set it up, adjusted it, and in 2021 the telescope started working for us. The only thing is that we were not able to launch Soviet optics — mainly due to the fact that the quality of this optics turned out to be low. We left these experimental segments as a museum exhibit, and in their place we will install a modern, fast, high-aperture optical system. But in order to carry out some scientific observations, we temporarily hung a couple of small telescopes: one on top, on the Synthesis pipe, the other nearby. On them we began to discover asteroids and actively explore the galactic core. And now we observe both asteroids and galactic nuclei almost every clear night. We were able to detect 750 unknown asteroids, of which 42 asteroids are our priority in determining the orbit. Most likely, it will hit more asteroids. This means that we will be able to assign names to asteroids when they receive a permanent number — most likely in a few years. And, of course, this is prestigious, because this is a priority in the discovery of asteroids actually behind our observatory, behind our countrysaid the scientist.