An exhibition of images of cosmic objects taken with the new 1.5-m telescope at the National Astronomical Observatory (NAO) Rozhen was opened at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. The telescope operates in semi-automatic mode and can be controlled remotely, said the director of the Institute of Astronomy with NAO Prof. Evgeni Semkov. He introduced the author of the photographs - astronomer Sen. Asst. Prof. Milen Minev, PhD. The exposition includes photographs of the planet Jupiter and of stars, nebulae, galaxies, star clusters and formations of interstellar gas and dust such as the famous "Pillars of Creation" in the Eagle Nebula of the Serpens constellation. The telescope is the first large-scale scientific infrastructure which was built entirely with Bulgarian funding, said the President of BAS Prof. [...]

  International conference on "Stellar variability, stellar multiplicity" with the participation of 50 scientists from 15 European countries within the project "COST Action #18104 MW-GAIA: Revealing the Milky Way with Gaia” takes place at Sofia Tech Park from 6 to 8 June 2023. The Institute of Astronomy with NAO at BAS is hosting the event with representatives of the scientific community from Italy, Spain, France, Greece, Czech Republic, Poland, as well as from the USA and Chile. The satellite of the European Space Agency's (ESA) Gaia mission has been operational since December 2013 and is expected to run until 2025. It performs precision astrometry: measuring the positions, distances and motions of stars with extreme accuracy. The aim of the mission is to create the largest [...]

The construction of the tower for the new 1.5-meter telescope at the National Astronomical Observatory in Rozhen at the Institute of Astronomy of BAS has been completed. The 6-meter dome has been installed and the finishing works on the internal insulation of the tower are currently being carried out, as well as the installation of the power supply and the fiber-optic internet cable. Due to the onset of winter in the Rhodope Mountains and the snow cover that has formed in the area, the installation of the telescope itself will be postponed until spring 2023. During the last months, activities on the preparation of the telescope site have been carried out at NAO Rozhen. At the end of 2021, the geological survey and geodetic measurement [...]