Astronomical Council of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR

a scientific and organizational center that coordinates astronomical research conducted by scientific institutions of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, of the academies of sciences of the republics, and of the Ministry of Higher and Secondary Specialized Education of the USSR. It was instituted in 1936 under the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. The council’s membership includes leading Soviet scientists working in astronomy and astronomical instrument-making. Research in all branches of astronomy is coordinated by permanent commissions of the council, which include the commissions on astrometry, astronomical instrument-making, solar studies, astronomy of the stars, variable stars, celestial mechanics, planetary physics, physics of stars and nebulas, and the history of astronomy.

The Astronomical Council conducts scientific research in astrophysics and studies problems connected with the observation of artificial cosmic objects. The council has set up a large 50-cm camera for satellites at the Zvenigorod Experimental Station near Moscow, as well as other instruments for the optical observation of artificial cosmic objects. The council’s publications include Nauchnye informatsii (since 1965), Peremennye zvezdy (Variable Stars; since 1928), Astronomicheskii tsirkuliar (since 1940), Bulleten’stantsii opticheskogo nabliudeniia iskusstvenykh sputnikov zemli (Bulletin of Stations for Optical Observation of Artificial Earth Satellites; since 1958), and Obshchii katalog peremennykh zvezd (General Catalog of Variable Stars; 1st edition, 1948).