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Belopolsky Aristarkh Apollonovich
(01 (13) .07.1854–16.05.1934)
 An
outstanding Russian astronomer, academician.
Born in Moscow in the family of the warden of the 2nd Moscow
Gymnasium, later the controller of the Moscow-Yaroslavl Railway. His
father was the most cultured man of the time, and his patron and
connoisseur of art, S.I. Mamontov,
the great Russian artist I.E. Repin and
other famous people. Such
a beautiful environment favorably influenced the upbringing of the
boy: all his life he loved literature, art, especially music.
Since childhood, Belopolsky manifested craving and ability for
technical design and invention, which largely determined his entire
future life. He
graduated from the 2nd Moscow Gymnasium and entered the Physics and
Mathematics Faculty of Moscow University, intending to become an
engineer. But
fate decreed otherwise. At
one of the lectures on astronomy, Professor F.A. Bredikhin appealed
to students to help him in the technical re-equipment of some
devices. Called
Belopolsky, who was fascinated by this work and became an unofficial
technical assistant to Bredikhin. Gradually,
a mathematics student who was about to become a mechanic turned into
an astronomer scientist. At
the end of the university, at the insistence of Bredikhin, the young
man was left at the university. Soon
Belopolsky became an assistant at the Moscow Astronomical
Observatory, where, under the leadership of Bredikhin, he took up
systematic photography of the Sun. The
results of this work, he laid the foundation for his master's thesis
"Spots on the Sun and their Movement", defended in 1887.
In 1888, Belopolsky went to work at the Pulkovo Observatory, the
director of which soon became Bredikhin, who appointed Belopolsky to
the post of astrophysics. In
1900, he became an adjunct of the St. Petersburg Academy of
Sciences, in 1903 an academician, in 1908–1916 he held the posts of
vice director, and in 1916–1919 - director of the Pulkovo
Observatory. Since
1933, he is its honorary director.
Scientific work Belopolsky relate to many areas of astronomy. He
determined the parallax of stars, made studies of the rotation of
Jupiter and revealed various periods of its rotation at the equator
and in higher latitudes. Based
on observations obtained at Pulkovo in 1881–1888, he conducted
studies of the rotation of the Sun in the motion of torches. Belopolsky
is one of the founders of modern astrophysics, he has a great merit
in the application of astrophysical methods to the study of stars. One
of the first he received photographs of the spectra of heavenly
bodies using spectrographs (designed one of the spectrographs). Studies
of the radial velocities of stars, in particular variable cepheid
stars, based on the Doppler principle, carried out since 1890, were
of outstanding importance. Belopolsky
did a lot in the study of comets.
Office work Belopolsky combined with expeditionary. In
1887, he participated in an expedition to Yuryevets to observe a
total solar eclipse, was a member of astronomical expeditions to the
Far East and Central Asia, and shortly before his death, he traveled
to the North Caucasus to select an astrophysical observatory
building site.
He died in Leningrad, buried in the cemetery
of the Pulkovo Observatory.
Glacier on
the island of West Svalbard. Called
by “degree measurement” expedition. |
