Klavdia Barkhatova Established an Observatory in the Urals

11:38, April 12, 2022

On the Cosmonautics Day we tell about the founder of the Ural School of Astronomy

The Ural scientific school of stellar astronomy and the university' s Kourovka Astronomical Observatory are well-known to the world's astronomy. Their creation is entirely the merit of Klavdia Barkhatova, an outstanding scientist, organizer, lecturer, a person of remarkable determination and high culture.

Main creation of life

The year 1957, October 4 - the date of launching the first artificial satellite by the Soviet Union - is approaching. On the recommendation of the Astronomical Council of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, the Ural State University (now UrFU) under the leadership of Klavdia Barkhatova is preparing for satellite observations: this is the only sure way to revive the astronomy department at USU and create a university observatory. By efforts of Barkhatova the Sverdlovsk satellite tracking station was built, put into operation and due to unique accuracy of observations was considered one of the best in the country. Telegrams from Astronomical Council with the coordinates of the satellites come to the address "Sverdlovsk, Sky, Barkhatova" and signed "Cosmos".

In 1960, Klavdia Barkhatova succeeded in restoring the Astronomy and Geodesy Department, which she headed until 1986. Thus, the training of students in astronomy and astronomical geodesy, which was interrupted in the late 1940s, was resumed at USU. The next step was the construction of a scientific astronomical observatory, the first in the Urals and the easternmost in Europe. The observatory was opened on January 12, 1965, and from the first day Barkhatova became its scientific supervisor.

The Ural scientific school of stellar astronomy, founded by Professor Barkhatova, is a phenomenon of global significance. Klavdia Barkhatova herself was a member of the International Astronomical Union since the early 1950s, a member of the organizing committee of the IAU Commission on Stellar Clusters and Associations, a permanent delegate to IAU congresses. Subsequently, she was a member of the Scientific and Technical Council and the Scientific and Methodological Council of the USSR Ministry of Higher Education, the Council for Astronomical Personnel of the USSR Academy of Sciences, was the chairman of the working group "Star Clusters" of the Astronomical Council of the USSR Academy of Sciences, the head of the Head Council of Astronomy at the RSFSR Ministry of Higher Education. As an outstanding scientist, organizer of science and teacher Klavdia Barkhatova was awarded the Order "Badge of Honor", the title of "Excellent High School", the Medal of Honor of the Soviet Peace Foundation, medals of the All-Union Exhibition of Economic Achievements of the USSR.

"One woman managed in a short time to completely revive university astronomy - to gather and unite the remaining astronomers in Sverdlovsk, to create her own astronomical school and modern material and technical base for those times. And they say one man is not a soldier in the field!" - Rudolf Mikhailov, one of Barkhatova's first assistants, described admiringly.

At the front line of science

In 1941 many famous Soviet astronomers came to Sverdlovsk in evacuation. They gave lectures to students and conducted practical classes. This served as a great impetus in the development of Ural astronomy. Already in 1942, the natural faculties of the Urals State University restored the post-graduate program. At that time, Klavdia Barkhatova was involved in the problems of stellar astronomy, namely, scattered star clusters (SSCs).

"Scattered star clusters are one of the most important objects of astrophysical and stellar-statistical research. The fact that the stars in clusters have almost the same age and chemical composition, the analysis of the results of studies of SSCs allows us to improve the existing and develop new theories of the origin and evolution of stars. In addition, the SSCs are almost the only objects in our Galaxy for which it is possible to accurately determine the distances, ages, and chemical composition of the atmospheres of the cluster member stars. One of the main methods of SSCs research is multicolor photometry, which allows to determine the main parameters (brightness, color, interstellar absorption, chemical composition) of very faint stars, inaccessible to classical spectral analysis", explains Tatiana Levitskaya, student of Klavdia Barkhatova, veteran of UrFU, associate professor of the Department of Astronomy, Geodesy, Ecology and Environmental Monitoring.

At the peak of world recognition

In 1956, Klavdia Alexandrovna received her first photographic material from the Kazan Astronomical Observatory. These 224 negatives became the basis of the "glass library" of scattered star clusters of the Ural State University. It was from these observations made by Klavdia Barkhatova, at USU began photometric studies of SSCs (later observational material for photometry of star clusters the Ural State University received from the observatories in Crimea and Georgia).

The results were immediate. Soon Barkhatova discovered two new clusters in the Swan constellation, identified star chains in the cluster NGC 7086 and made a suggestion that the clusters NGC 1528 and NGC 1545 form a double system. At the same time Klavdia Barkhatova studied the famous SSC NGC 188. Its peculiarity is its great remoteness from the plane of the Milky Way and the abundance of stars, which indicated a considerable age of the star cluster. Barkhatova's study confirmed this assumption: the cluster NGC 188 appeared to be the most ancient of those studied in the late 1960s. Moreover, Klavdia Barkhatova discovered hot stars in the cluster and thus disproved the position of the theory of stellar evolution, according to which old clusters cannot contain hot stars (later they were called "blue stragglers").

The main result of the scientific work of Klavdia Barkhatova and her students is the publication in 1958-1961 of four volumes of the "Atlas of color-magnitude SSCs diagrams". In 1981, the scientific team published a catalog of 69 scattered star clusters belonging to binary and multiple systems. The works of Barkhatova and her co-authors have received international recognition.

Forever with us

After the death of Klavdia Barkhatova in January 1990, the Kourovka Observatory was named after her. In September of the same year, Galina Kastel, a student of Klavdia Aleksandrovna, and her colleague from the Crimean Astronomical Observatory, Lyudmila Zhuravleva, discovered the minor planet No. 5781. At the request of Kastel and the decision of the International Astronomical Union the planet was named "Barkhatova".

"Today, the Kourovka Observatory is one of the few university astronomical observatories in Russia that operate and produce competitive results. The UrFU observatory is equipped with several modern telescopes, which makes it possible to carry out fundamental and applied scientific research and to educate students. The observatory staff takes part in Russian and international programs of coordinated observations," says Vadim Krushinskiy, Acting Director of the Kourovka Astronomical Observatory.

The annual "Physics of Space" conferences, which have been held by the Kourov Observatory and the Department of Astronomy, Geodesy and Environmental Monitoring of UrFU for over half a century, gather leading scientists as well as the most successful students and graduate students from all over Russia and neighboring countries. In addition, the observatory is an important educational and outreach center: school Olympiads and scientific-practical conferences, more than a hundred excursions a year are held here.

The news article was translated by UrFU International Marketing Office
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