The Institute has actively participated in the International Year of Astronomy 2009, under the auspices of UNESCO. A series of PR activities started in January in Prague, where the European participation in IYA2009 was officially opened by J. Potočnik. In Prague J. Palouš has organized an exterior exhibition of astronomical images, while B. Jungwiert and P. Suchan were the members of the National organizing committee of IYA2009.
At the invitation of the Institute, the visit of NASA astronaut A. Feustel and his family took place in summer 2009. A. Feustel was the crew member of the STS-125 space shuttle mission, the last servicing mission to Hubble Space Telescope. He visited Ondřejov observatory and also several other places in the Czech Republic, where he gave a talk about STS-125.
In 2009, the Izera Dark-Sky Park was established as a result of previous activities of three Czech and three Polish institutions. This project is promoting the protection of dark sky from light pollution and is supported, among others, by our Institute in collaboration with the Institute of the Wroclaw University. For more information see www.izera-darksky.eu
Since 2010 the Institute is involved in new ESA missions like Solar Orbiter, Proba-2 and Proba-3. Hardware and software development of onboard instruments is in progress within the ESA-PRODEX programme in which the Czech Republic participates. Design and construction of a large space coronagraph ASPIICS onboard of two satellites Proba-3 is a challenging task. F. Fárník and P. Heinzel became Czech delegates in the Science Programme Committee of ESA which decides on future scientific missions.
Following the successful pilot project, the Institute prepares an extensive collaboration with the Niels Bohr Institute of Copenhagen University focused on usage of their 1.54 m telescope on La Silla (ESO). Our main project planned for the telescope will be the NEOSource project, i.e. the study of non-gravitational evolution processes in near-Earth asteroids and their source regions (in collaboration with the Faculty of mathematics and physics of Charles University in Prague).
The Czech Republic is the member of European Association for Solar Telecsopes (EAST), the organization which is building the European Solar Telescope (EST) with main mirror having 4 m diameter. The Institute is resonsible for design of the auxiliary full-disk telescope.
2009 was the year of the 50th anniversary of Příbram meteorite fall - the first instrumentally recorded meteorite fall in history. For that occasion, international conference Bolides and Meteorite Falls was organized by the Institute in Prague and an exhibition for the Czech public was prepared in the main building of the Academy of Sciences.
In 2009 the Institute has organized the PROM meeting in Prague, where around 40 experts on prominence physics from Europe and USA met and discussed the current problems of this exciting discipline.
In 2009 the solar department has undertaken modernization of its large horizontal solar telescope with multichannel spectrograph (HSFA-2), which is dedicated to studies of solar flares and prominences.
In 2010 the Institute has organized international conference „Probing strong gravity near black holes“. It was held in Prague, with 150 participants.
The Ondřejov 0.65-m telescope, which is run in collaboration with the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics of Charles University Prague, was refurbished and its control system was upgraded in 2009. It allows fully automated observations to be carried out, and our project of photometry of binary asteroids was run very efficiently with the new system during 2009-2010.
In 2009, the mirror of the 2-m telescope was sent to Jena for recoating. The Institute has also undertaken an upgrade of robotic control of the spectrographs of the 2-m stellar telescope in 2010.
Center of Theoretical Astrophysics joining the Institute with research groups at Institute of Theoretical Physics at the Charles University in Prague and at the Silesian University in Opava, and Center of the Earth Dynamics Research joining the Institute with the research groups at Czech Technical University, the Institute of Rock Structure and Mechanics, and Research Institute of Geodesy, Topography and Cartography, continued during 2009 and 2010 their research programmes. Their activities have been extended until the end of 2011.
The Marie Curie Research Training Network CONSTELLATION (MCRTN-35890-2006) finished succesfully its activities on 30th November 2010.
In 2009, the Institute has started construction of the new building – the Astronomical pavillion – in Prague-Sporilov academic campus. This building will serve mainly the GPS department and will be opened in summer 2011.
After decision made by ESO, a new European node of the ALMA project (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) started to operate at the Institute in January 1, 2010. A new room was dedicated, for this purpose, equipped with computers, where the scientists will be working, especially those from abroad. The head of this node is Marian Karlický and his team consists of six co-workers. Similarly to other European ALMA nodes, the Czech node has its own specialization - solar physics, stellar and relativistic astrophysics, and molecular spectroscopy with high spectral resolution. It is proposed that the following topics will be studied in our ALMA node: structure of the chromosphere and the transition region on the Sun, generation of solar flares, filaments and prominences and study of the solar convection (as common project of ALMA with a 1.5 m solar telescope GREGOR under construction at Canary Islands and in which the Institute is also involved), formation of stars in nearby and distant galaxies, or study of the central parts of galaxies. Topics of scientific activities in our node in solar research were presented to the international solar community in Karlický et al.: 2011, Solar Physics, 268, 165. The node will be collaborating with the Institute of Chemical Technology in Prague, Charles University in Prague and Masaryk University in Brno.
Number scientists of the Instutute recieved individual awards in 2009 and 2010:
Zdenek Ceplecha received State Medal of Merit II for research of meteors and meteoroids from the President of the Czech Republic.
Zdenek Ceplecha was awarded the Academy of Sciences De Scientia et Humanitate Optime Meritis for research of meteorids and meteors.
Lubos Perek was awarded the Academy of Sciences De Scientia et Humanitate Optime Meritis a lifelong activity.
Lubos Perek received the Medal of the Learned Society of CR for lifelong activity.
Vladimír Karas received the Kopal lecture granted by the Czech Astronomical Society for the significant results in the field of relativistic astrophysics.
Daniela Korčáková was awarded the Premium of Otto Wichterle from Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic for solving the equation of radiative transfer.
Adéla Kawka received from the Institute Jan Frič Premium for the research of white dwarfs.
Petr Heinzel recived the Gold Medal of the University of Wroclaw (Poland) for a long-term cooperation and in recognition of his scientific achievements.
Richard Wünsch received the Academy of Sciences Award for young researchers for the modeling of induced star formation.
Viktor Votruba was awarded the Premium of Otto Wichterle by the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic for a set of work on the issue of hot stars.
Štěpán Štverák, David Herčík a Pavel Trávníček received awards from the European Space Agency for their participation in the project Proba 2.
Jaroslav Klokočník received award from the IEEE Computer Society as the best technical paper.
Jan Jurčák received Jan Frič Premium for a set of papers on spectropolarimetry fine structure of sunspots and photosphere from the Institute.
At the invitation of the Institute, the visit of NASA astronaut A. Feustel and his family took place in summer 2009. A. Feustel was the crew member of the STS-125 space shuttle mission, the last servicing mission to Hubble Space Telescope. He visited Ondřejov observatory and also several other places in the Czech Republic, where he gave a talk about STS-125.
In 2009, the Izera Dark-Sky Park was established as a result of previous activities of three Czech and three Polish institutions. This project is promoting the protection of dark sky from light pollution and is supported, among others, by our Institute in collaboration with the Institute of the Wroclaw University. For more information see www.izera-darksky.eu
Since 2010 the Institute is involved in new ESA missions like Solar Orbiter, Proba-2 and Proba-3. Hardware and software development of onboard instruments is in progress within the ESA-PRODEX programme in which the Czech Republic participates. Design and construction of a large space coronagraph ASPIICS onboard of two satellites Proba-3 is a challenging task. F. Fárník and P. Heinzel became Czech delegates in the Science Programme Committee of ESA which decides on future scientific missions.
Following the successful pilot project, the Institute prepares an extensive collaboration with the Niels Bohr Institute of Copenhagen University focused on usage of their 1.54 m telescope on La Silla (ESO). Our main project planned for the telescope will be the NEOSource project, i.e. the study of non-gravitational evolution processes in near-Earth asteroids and their source regions (in collaboration with the Faculty of mathematics and physics of Charles University in Prague).
The Czech Republic is the member of European Association for Solar Telecsopes (EAST), the organization which is building the European Solar Telescope (EST) with main mirror having 4 m diameter. The Institute is resonsible for design of the auxiliary full-disk telescope.
2009 was the year of the 50th anniversary of Příbram meteorite fall - the first instrumentally recorded meteorite fall in history. For that occasion, international conference Bolides and Meteorite Falls was organized by the Institute in Prague and an exhibition for the Czech public was prepared in the main building of the Academy of Sciences.
In 2009 the Institute has organized the PROM meeting in Prague, where around 40 experts on prominence physics from Europe and USA met and discussed the current problems of this exciting discipline.
In 2009 the solar department has undertaken modernization of its large horizontal solar telescope with multichannel spectrograph (HSFA-2), which is dedicated to studies of solar flares and prominences.
In 2010 the Institute has organized international conference „Probing strong gravity near black holes“. It was held in Prague, with 150 participants.
The Ondřejov 0.65-m telescope, which is run in collaboration with the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics of Charles University Prague, was refurbished and its control system was upgraded in 2009. It allows fully automated observations to be carried out, and our project of photometry of binary asteroids was run very efficiently with the new system during 2009-2010.
In 2009, the mirror of the 2-m telescope was sent to Jena for recoating. The Institute has also undertaken an upgrade of robotic control of the spectrographs of the 2-m stellar telescope in 2010.
Center of Theoretical Astrophysics joining the Institute with research groups at Institute of Theoretical Physics at the Charles University in Prague and at the Silesian University in Opava, and Center of the Earth Dynamics Research joining the Institute with the research groups at Czech Technical University, the Institute of Rock Structure and Mechanics, and Research Institute of Geodesy, Topography and Cartography, continued during 2009 and 2010 their research programmes. Their activities have been extended until the end of 2011.
The Marie Curie Research Training Network CONSTELLATION (MCRTN-35890-2006) finished succesfully its activities on 30th November 2010.
In 2009, the Institute has started construction of the new building – the Astronomical pavillion – in Prague-Sporilov academic campus. This building will serve mainly the GPS department and will be opened in summer 2011.
After decision made by ESO, a new European node of the ALMA project (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) started to operate at the Institute in January 1, 2010. A new room was dedicated, for this purpose, equipped with computers, where the scientists will be working, especially those from abroad. The head of this node is Marian Karlický and his team consists of six co-workers. Similarly to other European ALMA nodes, the Czech node has its own specialization - solar physics, stellar and relativistic astrophysics, and molecular spectroscopy with high spectral resolution. It is proposed that the following topics will be studied in our ALMA node: structure of the chromosphere and the transition region on the Sun, generation of solar flares, filaments and prominences and study of the solar convection (as common project of ALMA with a 1.5 m solar telescope GREGOR under construction at Canary Islands and in which the Institute is also involved), formation of stars in nearby and distant galaxies, or study of the central parts of galaxies. Topics of scientific activities in our node in solar research were presented to the international solar community in Karlický et al.: 2011, Solar Physics, 268, 165. The node will be collaborating with the Institute of Chemical Technology in Prague, Charles University in Prague and Masaryk University in Brno.
Number scientists of the Instutute recieved individual awards in 2009 and 2010:
Zdenek Ceplecha received State Medal of Merit II for research of meteors and meteoroids from the President of the Czech Republic.
Zdenek Ceplecha was awarded the Academy of Sciences De Scientia et Humanitate Optime Meritis for research of meteorids and meteors.
Lubos Perek was awarded the Academy of Sciences De Scientia et Humanitate Optime Meritis a lifelong activity.
Lubos Perek received the Medal of the Learned Society of CR for lifelong activity.
Vladimír Karas received the Kopal lecture granted by the Czech Astronomical Society for the significant results in the field of relativistic astrophysics.
Daniela Korčáková was awarded the Premium of Otto Wichterle from Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic for solving the equation of radiative transfer.
Adéla Kawka received from the Institute Jan Frič Premium for the research of white dwarfs.
Petr Heinzel recived the Gold Medal of the University of Wroclaw (Poland) for a long-term cooperation and in recognition of his scientific achievements.
Richard Wünsch received the Academy of Sciences Award for young researchers for the modeling of induced star formation.
Viktor Votruba was awarded the Premium of Otto Wichterle by the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic for a set of work on the issue of hot stars.
Štěpán Štverák, David Herčík a Pavel Trávníček received awards from the European Space Agency for their participation in the project Proba 2.
Jaroslav Klokočník received award from the IEEE Computer Society as the best technical paper.
Jan Jurčák received Jan Frič Premium for a set of papers on spectropolarimetry fine structure of sunspots and photosphere from the Institute.