The BELISSIMA seminar held at the library of the Astronomical Observatory

 

At the library of the Astronomical Observatory of Belgrade (AOB) the BELISSIMA seminar Telescope Milanković - Current Status and the Prospects for the Future was held on  December 2, 2015. The speakers were Dr. Oliver Vince, member of the staff of the AOB and the director of the Astronomical Station Vidojevica (ASV) where the telescope “Milanković” will be mounted and Dr. Michal Bilek from the Astronomical Institute of Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic who visited the AOB through the BELISSIMA project.

Dr. Oliver Vince presented the brief history of the ASV and the current situation there. He also described the recent successful tests of the telescope with the diameter of the main mirror of 1.40 m (telescope “Milanković”) that is being purchased using the funds of FP7 REGPOT project BELISSIMA and  the funds coming from the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia. After he showed how the telescope functions, Dr. Vince announced its mounting at the ASV the for spring of 2016. At the end of his talk, he showed the newly built pavilion with rolling roof where the telescope “Milanković” will be mounted.

Dr. Michal Bilek divided his talk into three parts. In the first part, he presented his software PARot (PARot polar aligner) for polar alignment of equatorial mounts.  He showed various technical details as well as the movie that shows its functioning.
In the second part of his talk, Dr. Bilek presented his observing proposal for the observations of shell galaxies from the ASV, while in the third part he expanded his discussion presented in the regular AOB seminar held on  October 28, 2015, “Testing MOND in Shell Elliptical Galaxies”, and showed new results he obtained in collaboration with the coordinator of BELISSIMA, Dr. Srdjan Samurović, that are relevant for the future observations to be performed from the ASV.

 

Dr. Oliver Vince at the BELISSIMA seminar

 

Dr. Michal Bilek at the BELISSIMA seminar