Negotiating a great telescope: The case of Czechoslovakia

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F67985921%3A_____%2F25%3A00645458" target="_blank" >RIV/67985921:_____/25:00645458 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://doi.org/10.32703/2415-7422-2025-15-2-456-471" target="_blank" >https://doi.org/10.32703/2415-7422-2025-15-2-456-471</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.32703/2415-7422-2025-15-2-456-471" target="_blank" >10.32703/2415-7422-2025-15-2-456-471</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Negotiating a great telescope: The case of Czechoslovakia

Original language description

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Astronomical Institute of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences undertook a long, complicated journey towards obtaining a 2-m refractor comparable to the largest instruments in the world, inaugurating it during the XIIIth General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union held on August 22‒31, 1967 in Prague. The journey can be reconstructed from archival materials and recorded memories of the witnesses. What made this situation unique is the fact that two very similar telescopes were ordered at roughly the same time for the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic and the Azerbaijan SSR. Those telescopes were developed in parallel to reduce costs, becoming the second and third in the Zeiss series of 2-m universal telescopes. The astronomical institutes of CSSR and AzSSR had to negotiate and compromise their requirements, and in addition, because constructing a large telescope and bringing it into service takes many years, anticipate future developments in the relevant fields as well as requirements for equipment and configuration. Successful completion of this international project required a high number of negotiations between astronomers from both institutions, the instrument manufacturer VEB Zeiss Jena, the highest levels of the state administrations, the Czechoslovak foreign trade company KOVO, and multiple other corporations from CSSR and the GDR involved in the construction and delivery of the telescope, its dome, and associated equipment. The project understandably experienced issues such as misunderstandings and delays, which all those actors had to deal with. The outcome of this early effort is a telescope that, following numerous modernisations, is still used for research in today’s Czech Republic. This paper explores this early history of this telescope – from the first suggestions to the delivery and construction in the observatory of the Astronomical Institute of the CSAS in Ondřejov – with particular attention to the negotiations among key actors and to their personal reflections and memories of the process.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

60301 - Philosophy, History and Philosophy of science and technology

Project

<a href="/en/project/GF21-45624L" target="_blank" >GF21-45624L: Czechoslovak-Polish Scholarly Entanglements in the Cold War Between High Politics and Individual Strategies</a><br>

Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2025

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

History of science and technology

ISSN

2415-7422

e-ISSN

2415-7430

Volume of the periodical

15

Issue of the periodical within the volume

2

Country of publishing house

UA - UKRAINE

Number of pages

16

Pages from-to

456-471

UT code for WoS article

001664069500008

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-105027914689