ILBA 2

This is the first issue of ILBA in the XXI century, and the editors hope thatby its frequency and content it will continue to be useful to all those engaged in space research in the Balkan countries, and possibly wider.

While you are reading this, you are certainly aware that a big change has occurred: the previous issues were prepared as simple txt files, while this issue is a doc file.This is a small step in bringing ILBA to a better technical level.

Year 2001 has started with a total lunar eclipse, visiblefrom the Balkans on January 9.It was observed,visually and photographically,by amateurs from different locations in Serbia.Unfortunately,the weather was nearly everywhere partially cloudy. The amateur groups active in the city of Valjevo have managed to obtain excellent photographs, and estimate the brightness of the eclipse on the Danjon scale. Their result is L=2-3,but nearer to 2; the observers admit that theresult is not as good as it could have been because of clouds, dissipating around the moment of totality.For details contact Mr. Branislav Savic at savan@psc.ac.yu.

In the lastissue of ILBA, we have announced a forthcoming meeting in Greece - the Fifth Hellenic Astronomy Conference, which will be held on the island of Crete in September of this year. In the meantime, the conference web has been somewhat changed, so it is now as follows: http://astrophysics.physics.uoc.gr/conf/ . The invited lecturers and the conference sections are now known.

Prof. Dr. Magda Stavinischi has informed the editors about a new web address : http://roastro.astro.ro/ .It is maintained at the Institute of Astronomy in Bucharest, and gives you access to various data about space science in Romania.

Finally, the editors of ILBA have received and interesting offer from the USA. Mr. Sasha Skerlich, of Serbian origin but living in Las Vegas, has offered to develop a web site on which he could post issues of ILBA and other materials related to astronomy and related sciences in the Balkan region.His offer isaccepted with thanks, and correspondence is under way .

At the University of Belgrade, the Astronomy departement has its home page. The address of the english translation of this internet presentation is:

One of the ideas advanced at the meeting in Belogradchik was that space sientists from the Balkan countries should develop joint projects based, as much as possible, on existing equipement and facilities.A practical proposal along these lines has recently arrived from Dr. B. Zhilyaev zhilyaev@mao.kiev.ua.The idea of Dr.Zhilyaev is to launch a project in observational solar physics aimed at young astronomers from the Balkans. The project could last up to three years, and it would use the existing horizontal solar telescope (HST) at the observatory on Mt. Tereskol in northern Caucasus . The altitude of the observatory is 3100m.

The parameters of the instrument are: D = 65 cm, F=168 cm. It is equiped with a five chamber spectrograph with the size of the spectra 20x25 cm. The grating has 600 lines per milimeter, the instrumental contour is 18 mA in the spectrum of fourth order at 633 nm.The detector is a 768 x 512 CCT ST-1 with pixels of 9 micrometers. Details can be obtained from Dr. Alexey Andrienko at the addresses: (olexa@mao.kiev.ua; olexa@burbon.nalnet.ru ) andthe local project coordinator is Dr. Nikolay V. Karpov(karpov@mao.kiev.ua ).

At the turn of the centuries,two of ourcollegues have died: one in Macedonia and the other one in Bulgaria. Their obituaries, written by close collaborators and friends are included in this issue of ILBA.

IN MEMORIAM

Mijat Mijatovich(1950-2000)

Mijat Mijatovich was born on March 15 A. D.1950,in Vuchkovica,Serbia (FR Yugoslavia).He graduated a grammar school oriented in sciences and mathematics,in Chachak.In 1969 he started the studies in physics at the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics in Belgrade where he graduated in 1973.He started to work as research junior assistant at the Institute of Physics in Belgrade (nowadays it is in Zemun).

After completing his master thesis in theoretical physics in 1977 (from the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics in Belgrade) he started to work at the Faculty of Physics in Skopje,Macedonia,first as teaching assistant and after acquiring his Ph. D.(in 1980) as assistant professor in Statistical mechanics with thermodynamics.Since 1992 Mijat Mijatovich was elected as full professor at the Dept.Physics,Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics (FNSM) Sts.Cyril and Methodius University,Skopje,Macedonia where he taught several courses:

Statistical physics with thermodynamics,Astronomy with astrophysics and Physics of the earth and atmosphere.In the 1987–1989 and 1997–1999 periods he was elected as a head of the Department ofPhysics.

In his carrier he also gave lectures in Statistical mechanics and Solid state physics,at the FNSM in Podgorica (Montenegro) and had a fruitful collaboration with many institutions and universities all around the world.He was an external collaborator in the Institute of Nuclear Sciences “Vincha” and Institute of fundamental researches in Monteroduni (Italy).

In the period 1985-1988 he was a principal investigator of the US-Yugoslav Joint Fund Project "Classical and Quantum-Mechanical Treatment of Non-Potential Interactions",JFP pp 563 (DOE).He published more than 100 articles in international and national journals in the field of quantum and statistical mechanics,theory of concentrators,nonpotential interactions and differential equations.

A very important part in Prof.Mijatovich’s educational,research and active public life started after the insertion of the course Astronomy and astrophysics for the students of physics in 1992 and after the foundation the Macedonian astronomical society (MAS) in 1996. As a professor in the new and very attractive course for all students in physics Prof.Mijatovich became a very active person and invited lecturer in many schools in all parts of the country. Mijat Mijatovich was the Editor in chief of the popular astronomical journal Astronomical Almanac for 1995,1996 and 1997. As a president of MAS,Prof.Mijatovich successfully completed a number of important activities including the membership of Macedonia in the International astronomical union.Namely,since 1998 it is a full member of IAU,and Prof.Mijatovich has been Macedonia’s national representative.

Mijat Mijatovich was one of the architects of the initiative for collaboration of the Balkan astronomers.In April 1997 during the Hale-Bopp comet appearance,he organized an excursion to the NAO Rozhen for the members of MAS and his students and established the first contacts with Bulgarian astronomers.Professor Mijatovich had very close contacts with the Astronomical observatory and planetarium “Nicolaus Copernicus” from Varna where he attended one Youth conference in 1998 and made observations in 1999 during the total sun eclipse.Since 1998 a contract for collaboration was established between the Department of Physics,FNSM in Skopje and the Institute of Astronomy at the Bulgarian Academy of Science.Prof.Mijatovich,as a Head of the Department of Physics,deserves the credit for the purchased CCD camera,for the Schmidt telescope in Rozhen.Since then,regular observations of minor plannets within the framework of Solar group from BAS were accomplished.

His activity for collaboration between astronomers from neighbouring countries in the ever turbulent Balkan region was improved in Belogradchik (Bulgaria) during the Balkan meeting of young astronomers (25–29 September 2000).

Mijat Mijatovich could be rightly recognized as a founder of the astronomy in Macedonia and as vigorous fighter for its proper position.In his very last days he started popularizing the reform of the Julian calendar suggested by Maksim Trpkovic,when he was obstructed by the sudden and fatal heart attack on December 25th.

Mijat Mijatovich could not experience the realization of his greatest wish – building of astronomical observatory in Macedonia.This remains to be done byhis colleagues and students.This,we feel,we owe to our great teacher and friend.

In Memoriam:

Prof.Vladimir Nikolov Dermendjiev

(1943 - 2001)

On January 5,2001Prof.Vladimir Nikolov Dermendjiev,initiator of Solar physics in Bulgaria and Chief of the Solar division in the Institute of Astronomy,Bulga rian Academy of Sciences suddenly died of a heart attack.

Vladimir Nikolov Dermendjiev was born on november 6,1943 in the town Gotse Delchev.He had begun to study astronomy in Sofia University in 1963 and got his Master degree in 1968.His diploma work was the first one in solar physics in Bulgaria.He defended his PhD thesis on solar prominencesin 1976.He received the position of a research fellow in the Department of Astronomy,BAS in 1977.At the same time he became associate lecturer in solar physics in Sofia University.

Since 1995 Vladimir Dermendjiev became Doctor in Science and Professor. He was the Director of the Institute of Astronomy in the period 1993 - 1995 and Scientific secre-tary in the period 1996 - 2000.

He worked on the problems of solar cycle,solar prominences,magnetohydrody-namics and eruptive events in the solar atmosphere.He is one of the co-authors of a new method for the determination of indirect index of solar activity.Under his supervision a firm group of researchers in solar physics and magnetohydrodynamics was formed and in 1985 the Solar division was established.

Prof.Dermendjiev is the author of several monographs and more than 150 papers,published in leading international scientific journals.He was well-known all over the world and had collaborations with colleagues from France,Poland,Russia,Czech Republic,Slovakia,Romania,Turkey and England.

Bulgarian astronomy lost an excellent scientist.Although he was in poor health,he worked intensively.Vlado (his colleagues and friends called him so) was always ready to help colleagues,PhD and diploma students with a wise advice on science,or on things of the life.He was also lovely husband and father.He took care of everyone,except of himself!

Rest in piece,Vlado! You'll miss to all of us!

in the name of his colleagues:
Peter Duhlev
Momchil Dechev
Renada Konstantinova-Antova

The basic idea of ILBA is to represent a channel through which all those interested can gain information on space research in the Balkan region. Continuing with this practice, in the follow up comes a list of recent publications by authors from the Balkans. It is certainly incomplete, but the only way which can assure its completeness is letting the editors know about your results.So please - write tothe editors, sending an e-mail is certainly incomparably simpler than writing a paper.

1. M. Chizhov and D. Kirilova: Lepton assymetry effect on neutrino oscillations and primordial He-4 ;

For those of you who are perhaps not used to electronic preprints,the numbers given above reffer to the preprint archives in the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The general url is http://xxx.lanl.gov/ .

3. M. Stavinschi and J. P. Zahn are co-editors of a book "Advances in Solarresearch at Eclipses from Ground and from Space".The editors do not have complete bibliographical data, but it has been published in the NATO ASI series.

4.V. Celebonovic and W. Däppen : "The plasma-solid transition" ; preprint astro-ph/0102284 and submitted for publication.

5.The next issue of the Serb. Astron. J. ,published by the Astronomical Observatory in Beograd is currently being prepared; according to current plans, it willgo topress sometime between May and September.

6.6. G. Giuricin,S. Samurovicet al. : "The redshift-space two pointcorrelation functions of galaxies and groups in the Nearby Optical Galaxy sample",preprint astro-ph/0102470.

The last issue of ILBA contained a longer list of references. It seems to the editors that a "big step forward" in this issue is the proposal for solar physics work.

Projects like this were one of the motives with which ILBA was proposed and launched in Belogradchik. We can only hope that the number of such proposals will continue togrow, and of course that you will continue to inform us about your results, ideas and problems, so that we can continue with ILBA.