Texts: RNDr. Jana Mešterová (astronomy),
Magdaléna Semanová (planetarium)
Photos: Bartolomej Cisár
Graphic layout: Mgr. Jana Žakarovská Ďuricová
SLOVAK TECHNICAL MUSEUM
Hlavná 88, 040 01 Košice
www.stm-ke.sk
e-mail: [email protected]
[email protected]
tel.: 055/62 240 35-6, 72 606 12
ASTRONOMY
There are just a few disciplines which
brought fame to Slovakia as much as astronomy did.
The first part of an exposition under the
title Astronomy in Slovakia is dedicated
to the Slovak history of astronomy. It focuses on universities, schools, planetariums, various institutions and
prominent personalities who were
their members. It also includes astronomers who
could not be of use at home so they worked abroad where they
brought fame to our country.
First university in Slovakia was Academina Istropolitana (1467-1490?) in Bratislava. A German matheJán
Müllermatician
and
astronomer
Regiomontanus (1436–1476), who was lecturing there, composed a table of movements of well-known planets of that
time. A Polish astronomer Martin
Bylica from Olkusz (1433– around
1510), another teacher at university, became a court astrologer of
King Matej Korvín. Popularization
of the astronomical observations
was in 16th and 17th century realized through calendars of famous
publishers Peter Slovacius, Juraj
Hensich from Bardejov and Dávid
Frohlich from Ľubice. Within the
scope of re-catholization there were
Jezuit universities in Trnava (1635)
and Košice (1657) established. One of
their most prominent professors was Martin Szentiványi (1633-1705) from Liptovský
Ján, the author of Misccellanea, an extract of the
curiosities of different scholarships. His handbook introduces a
collection of the whole natural scientific facts of 17th century (in
exposition). A German mathematician Georg Joachim Rheticus
(1514–1576), an assistant of Mikuláš Kopernik, brought to Košice
the first copy of Kopernik´s work “About circuit of heavenly bodies”. The author of the first astronomical document in Slovakia
was Jakub Pribicer (1548–1582) from B. Bystrica (Tractus de
cometa, B.Bystrica, 1578)
PLANETARIUM
Ján from Prešov (15th-16th cent.) was an astronomer actuating in Vienna who supported in Prešov the establishment of the first planetarium in Ugrian Kingdom. Thanks to the contacts of the Evangelical
schools with the West-European protestant universities, they were
more accessible to progress philosophical and natural-scientific ideas
(Prešov, Kežmarok, Levoča, and Bratislava). Dávid Fröhlich (15961648) from Ľubice near Kežmarok, an astronomer and mathematician, in his work “A layout of the world movements”, Levoča 1632- was
the first in the Ugrian Kingdom who defended Kopernik´s thesis
about the rotation of the Earth. In the half of 18th century the universities in the Habsburg Empire were nationalized, Newton´s and
Kopernik´s theory were published in the text books. In the town of
Trnava the observatory has been built.
The exposition emphasizes astronomers whose names are not
craters on the Moon. Ernst Chladni (1756–1827), a German
physicist with Slovak roots (Kremnica) is considered a founder
of “Meteoritika.” Maximilián Hell (1720–1792) from Banská
Štiavnica achieved world fame by calculation of distance
between the Earth and the Sun on the basis of transfer
measurement of Venus in front of the Sun disc (1769Vardó). He was a director of college observatory in Vienna.
Ján Andrej Segner (1704–1777) from Bratislava worked in German universities. He established an astronomy observatory in
Göttingen (1748- eclipse of the Sun). František Xaver Zach (17541832) from Bratislava participated on building-up the observatory
in Seeberg near Gotha (1798– 1st international astronomy congress), in Neapol, Lucca and Geneva. Jozef Maximilián Petzval (1807–
1891) from Spišská Belá, a professor in the university in Vienna, got
famous in the area of optics. He worked out a theory of an achromatic
objective (1840) and improved a telescope. Maurice Loewy (1833–
1907) from Pezinok, a director of observatory in Paris, dealt with the
photographing of the sky. He invented a new type of a telescope –
coudé, with its help he made out the atlas of
the Moon. Antonín Bečvář (1901–1965)
from Stará Boleslav, the first director of
observatory in Skalnate Pleso (from
1943), the author of „ Atlas Coeli
Skalnaté Pleso“, „Atlas Eclipticalis“ and „Atlas of alpine
clouds“.
In 1847–1848 an Austrian physicist and mathematician Christian
Johann
Doppler
(1803–1853)
worked in Banská academy in Banská
Štiavnica. Doppler principle (1862) is used for specifying of the momentum of the stars and galaxies. On its basis and on the basis of
spotted red movement of spectral lines of galaxies the expansion of
the universe was discovered. Mikuláš Konkoly-Thege (1842–1916)
from Budapest built up a meteorological Workstation (1867), an observatory (1871) and a geophysical Workstation (1899) on his estate in
Stará Ďala (Hurbanovo). The workstations were in the last third
of 19th century visited by specialists because of the vintage
instrumentation. Milan Rastislav Štefánik (1880–1919)
worked in observatory in Meudon near Paris. He
observed a total eclipse of the Sun (1905 –
Spain, 1907 – Turkestan), Halley ’s Comet
(1910 – Tahiti, he built up an observatory).
The exposition deals with contemporary
astronomical professional workstations
– Astronomical station SAV in Stará
Lesná, Station of experimental physic
SAV in Košice, Department of
mathematics, physic and
informatics UK in
Bratislava, Faculty of
science
UPJŠ
in
Košice, Slovak central observatory in
Hurbanovo, observatories and planetariums
in
different
Slovak towns.
The second part of the exposition focuses on Observant technology in
astronomy. There is an apparatus technology from the latest time till
the present days. The most valuable apparatus is the collection of sundials from 17th – 18th cent., Jacob´s rod, parallactic ruler, ARMILAR
sphere, astrolabe, quadrant, sextant, octant, globes of star-lit-sky from
the beginning of 18th century, various telescopes in combination with
clock mechanism, camera, and spectroscope or computer technology. In the second half of 20th century scientists began to record, besides the visible radiance, also the airwaves, infra-red, X-ray,
ultraviolet and gamma radiances. The whole exposition of astronomy
mentions the fact, that scientific discoveries were dependent on the
level of scientific knowledge and on the technical level of production.
Astronomical apparatuses from inheritance of Milan Rastislav Štefánik are very precious. In the exposition there are freely stored telescopes which can be tested by visitors.
is an optical apparatus situated in the middle of a round room
with an eight-meter-long diameter, where is a huge dome-shaped
surface above heads of visitors representing an artificial sky.
Planetarium enables to depict a night sky as we can see it during
the ideal conditions from the Earth without help of apparatus.
For persons concerned in astronomy, it shows the star-lit-sky,
planets, the Sun and the Moon, unusual phenomenon and movements of heavenly bodies, which are visible without help of a telescope. The main apparatus of planetarium is a small projective
planetarium, a type ZKP-II, made by a Zeiss Jena company. It has
two projective heads. Actually, these are two stereopticons, each
with 16 objectives, which help to show a particular part of the sky.
Variant pictures mesh together and create a perfect illusion of
the night sky full of stars. Two projective heads enable to demonstrate a view on the night sky from the northern and eastern
hemisphere. Through the medium of apparatus it is possible to
depict visible object from the Earth – approximately 5000 stars,
the Sun, the Moon, 5 planets of solar system (Mercury, Venus,
Mars, Jupiter and Saturn) and some visible nebulas, galaxies and
Milky Way. It is possible to set the apparatus up on the arbitrary
day, month, and year and to show how the sky looked like or how
it will look in the near future. By the help of additional equipment
it is possible to screen solar system from long distance, to
demonstrate the eclipse of the Moon and the Sun, and comet
crossing. A visitor, besides the fact that he gains a huge amount
of concrete information, he realizes that the world which surrounds him is in a constant movement and development, everything is changing. Planetarium enables to see these changes in
an accelerated tempo. Capacity of planetarium is 42 seats.
Planetarium has been accessible to public from 1975. In a projective hall of planetarium is possible to realize popular-science
and musical-relaxing programs. Astronomical programs are
accompanied by films and they are assimilated to different age levels of visitors. A part of the exposition is also
technology, which enables to use a huge amount of
information from MMCD´s (Encyclopaedia of the
Universe, Mining of the Universe etc.) and
video-view.