The complex of Pulkovskaya observatory is situated on a hill 75 meters high, several kilometers south of the city. It's something like a fenced scientific town. The fence is mostly against cars because cyclists can cycle around the park freely. To get there you can use bus or metro (metro station - "Moskovskaya")
The main building of the Pulkovskaya observatory
During the World War II it was completely destroyed.
Now it contains a museum, laboratories and a book depository.
That's how the Pulkovskaya observatory looked like in 1855 (the engraving of I. I. Bernadskii from the picture of V. Petrov )
As you see, now the domes look differently. Before the war they were rotundas.
An inscription above the door is "MDCCCXXXIX". I guess it's a year when the observatory was built. I hope you won't mind me leaving them without translation in Arabic numerals.
Under the telescope the foundation of the buildings is 4-5 meters deep.
One of the domes
The observatory works since 19th of August 1839. It was built by A.P.Brullov. Vasilii Yakovlevich Struve was appointed the first director of the observatory.
In 1945-1954 some of new buildings were added by A.B. Schusev and D. H. Enikeev.
Before that, under Peter I there was an observatory in the city (in Kunstkamera ), but it was rather inconvenient.
In 1790 on behalf of Cathrine II J. Quarenghi developed the project of an observatory in Pulkovo but it was postponed because of empress' death.
The tablet says:
"The main astronomical observatory. The western building"
Unfortunately I don't know anything about this building.
A 26-inch refractor (a refractor is the one with lenses, a reflector is the one with a mirror)
It was established in 1954 instead of 30-inch one that was destroyed during the war. It was produced by "Carl Zeiss" factory in Hitlerite Germany for Italy. Probably it's a trophy.
In 1995 a CCD matrix was set into.
A meridian instrument (?)
From the very time of establishment the observatory also informed different institutions and organization of exact time.
In this picture you can see buildings of time service
A cyclist came here from the city (a saw him an hour ago near the Victory Square) for a drive
The building of Special Astrophysical Observatory (SAO)
The columns are decorated with the signs of the zodiac
Claiming to be a work of art :-)
The construction in the center is a horizontal solar telescope
