Astronomska Opservatorija Colina Kapa, Trebevic, Sarajevo, Bosna i Hercegovina

Akademsko Astronomsko Društvo Sarajevo, BiH
Astronomska Opservatorija Čolina Kapa, Trebević, Sarajevo

Ovako je bilo NEKAD...

a ovako je SAD...

Astronomska Opservatorija teleskop prije. - Astronomical Observatory telescop before.

This was in NEAR PAST.... Astronomska opservatorija prije

es)

Astronomska Opservatorija teleskop sada. - Astronomical Observatory telescop.now.

and this is NOW...

Kupola sada

Academically Astronomical Society Sarajevo,BiH
Astronomical Observatory Čolina Kapa, Trebević, Sarajevo, BiH

The observatory is a converted Austro-Hungarian fortress on Mount Trebevic, near the Olympic bobsled run.
The newer dome on the left was built by amateurs in the late 1970s....and here is list of few people who BUILD THIS from very beginning and from nothing, except walls of old Austro-Hungarian fortress and they are: Esad Tefderdarija, Mirza Jamaković, Muhamed Muminović, Stupar Milorad, Miloš Mihajlović, Rudolf Bošnjak, Branko Vuksanović, Kranjc Davor, Jasminko Mulaomerović...and many others I can not remeber all names now.

The significance of the uninterrupted educational activity of the University of Sarajevo

Science is more than a deciphering of nature. It is proof that humans can work
together to build a better future. It is proof that those with minds can hold together
what those with guns would destroy.

by Zdravko Stipcevic, University of Mississippi

``To carry on as usual'' has been the persistent motto of the University of
Sarajevo throughout the past three years of war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. It does not
imply that all normal activities -- before the war, the university had an average
enrollment of 23,000 -- could continue unaffected. Instead, it reflects a deep
conviction that keeping the teaching process uninterrupted, in defiance of all the
misery, deprivation, destruction, and danger that life in the besieged city entails, is a
matter of utmost importance for the survival of the multiethnic Bosnian society. And
the motto has been strictly adhered to: the courses given, the exams held, the
faculty meetings conducted.

Sarajevo now bears little resemblance to a city that was once a model of
physical beauty. During the worst periods of siege, hundreds of mortar shells would
daily pound the city, and intermittent sniper fire at the city's intersections took its
deadly toll. The intention to create chaotic conditions has been part of the
psychological warfare implemented by the besieger against the city. It was carried
out systematically, disrupting in sequence: television relays, telephone and postal
services, tramways, bus lines, electricity, water and gas, university buildings, public
libraries, food convoys.

But the city's spirit was not broken. At the very beginnings of the war people
used to spend days and nights in shelters and didn't dare go outside. Afterwards
they became used to danger. Elementary and secondary schools and the university
continued teaching, and even though students and teachers make up a substantial
portion of the 10,000 civilians who fell as victims to snipers and shelling, the daily
routine of attending classes persisted. This unbending resolve may in part be
attributed to the irrepressible human craving for normal-life activities, but more so
to a firm belief that education and culture, with their devotion to excellence and high
ethical norms, comprise essential ingredients in maintaining and reinvigorating the
multicultural value system, thus paving the way toward future peace and
reconciliation.

``Why is somebody out there, behind a window in one of the high-rises on the
other side of Miljacka river, or in the hills overcooking the city, and who is now
taking aim at me, trying to kill me although I have done no harm to anybody?'' It is
a persistent question crossing the mind of those who run across the city's road
crossings. The international media would attribute the motive to the centuries-old
tribal hatreds and interpret the situation as a civil war based on ethnic and religious
intolerance. But the people of Sarajevo provide an incontrovertible example that it
is not so, that such an assessment is fabrication. In the beleaguered Sarajevo, one
does not feel intolerance; in fact, the constant shelling brought the people,
regardless of their religious beliefs or ethnic backgrounds, more closely together.
The common misery enhanced the feeling of empathy and appreciation of culture.
Despite countless obstacles some of the concerts, theater shows, and social events
that took place in the war-ravaged city rank among its highest cultural
achievements.

There is one baffling aspect pertaining to the university. Quite a few members of
the breakaway Bosnian Serb leadership, whose forces now keep Sarajevo in a
deadly stranglehold, are former faculty members of the University of Sarajevo,
some of them holding prominent positions for many years. We all lived nicely
together, many entering into mixed marriages, totally unaware of any latent
intolerance. What prompted these former colleagues to abandon the imperative of
``not doing to your neighbors what you would not like to have done onto you"?
Pondering over that, one concedes that different social groups do see some specific
political events in a different light, for example a nation's desire for sovereignty as
an act of secession, a declaration of independence as betrayal. Accordingly,
different political goals may be propounded, within democratically acceptable
strategies. But to have chosen, instead, to implant an ideology of hatred and wage a
war that has caused catastrophic suffering of the innocent, with hundreds of
thousands killed and millions displaced, this is beyond comprehension.

The war in Bosnia is essentially a war against civilians, against an urban
population and its culture. The present level of interethnic intolerance, practiced as
``ethnic cleansing,'' is the result of indoctrination, of conscious manipulation aimed
for transient use. Nationalistic ideology, which by exciting the unconscious
archetypal symbols and by invoking historical myths introduced the ethnical
``exclusion principle,'' subsequently resulted in expulsions, detentions, and over
200,000 dead.

The future of Bosnian society crucially depends on its ability to dispel the
indoctrinated misconceptions that life together, among ethnically different people, is
impossible. Education is the key to the success of this mission and the university, as
the highest institution of learning and the vehicle of international scientific
cooperation, has a special role in this. If, by consistent adherence to multicultural
values, combined with efforts toward reestablishing the international funding for
scientific research and organizing international scientific conferences in Sarajevo,
the university succeeds in getting across the message that human beings can and
should cooperatively coexist, then prospects for a better future, in spite of the tragic
amount of endured suffering, may not be hopelessly bleak.

ZDRAVKO STIPCEVIC is a professor in the Department of Physics at the
University of Sarajevo. His research is in theoretical high-energy physics. He was
the director of the Institute of Physics in Sarajevo and made numerous appearances
on television and radio to promote physics education. Stipcevic spent the first two
years of the war in the besieged city and is currently at the University of
Mississippi. With a group of American physicists, he is organizing an international
physics conference to be held in Sarajevo.

An open letter to the astronomical community, from the director of the Astronomical
Observatory of Sarajevo

To Whom It May Concern:

As is well known, the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina is for several years
the victim of brutal aggression. The purpose of this letter is to inform you about the
situation in astronomy and the Astronomical Observatory in Sarajevo before the
aggression and at the present time.

Astronomy in Bosnia and Herzegovina has a long tradition originating mainly in
the need of different religions to measure the time. It was customary to use the
various instruments such as astrolabe quadrants, almucantar quadrants, and sinical
quadrants. Later, the large number of clock towers that appeared were used as the
first places for astronomical observations. There are the numerous manuscripts on
bright comets, meteors, eclipses, and so forth. Modern astronomy began in the
early '60s when the first Astronomical Society in Bosnia and Herzegovina was
founded. A group of enthusiasts from the society built the first and the only
observatory in the republic in the period 1968 to 1982. The observatory is placed
on the mountain of Trebevic in the close neighborhood of Sarajevo. Before the
Serbian aggression on the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the observatory in
Sarajevo had the following equipment:

During the first attacks on the city of Sarajevo, the observatory was completely
destroyed. All instruments and most of the books and accessories have been
destroyed including the glass library with more than 9x12 centimeter glass plates
containing the complete records of the sky north of declination -10 in the period
1972 to 1978.

During the last 20 years our observatory, as the only institution of this kind in
Bosnia and Herzegovina, promoted both amateur and professional activities in the
field of astronomy. Many generations of students, mainly youngsters, passed our
courses, summer schools, and other forms of education. In the last 10 years we
worked in the field of photoelectric photometry of Be and shell stars. The
observations have been carried out in collaboration with the Hvar Observatory in
Croatia and Ondrejov Observatory in the Czech Republic. Using two cameras with
fisheye objectives, the registration of fireballs has been performed, as a part of the
project of forming the broader net in the former Yugoslavia. In collaboration with
University of Sarajevo the training of the students of geodesy, physics and others
took place.

The Astronomical Observatory in Sarajevo was the largest publisher of
astronomical literature in the former Yugoslavia, with more 30 titles in last two
decades. One of the authors from Sarajevo (myself) is the most productive author
in the history of astronomy in the former Yugoslavia.

In spite of the fact that the observatory has been destroyed and the life in
Sarajevo is extremely difficult, we have the strong intention to renew the
astronomical activities here. The lunar-phases calendar for 1993 has been released
and one of us has written two astronomical books, which are waiting the release
and the money to be published. With the help of our colleagues in Zagreb, we
obtained some offers for getting our new telescope. We truly hope to get a
computerized telescope with diameter of 60 centimeters whose price is about
$350,000. To achieve this goal some aid from the astronomical institutions,
International Astronomical Union, and all interested persons is necessary. It should
be noted that the only two professional astronomers are still in Sarajevo as well as
majority of the amateurs who helped our activities.

In our opinion the above mentioned aid could be performed in the following
way:

All ideas, advice, and any kind of help are welcome. We truly count on the
humanity and solidarity of the astronomers of the world.

Thank you in advance.
Muhamed Muminovic, Director, Astronomical Observatory, Sarajevo

Astronomy in Bosnia
by George Musser, Astronomical Society of the Pacific

As in many countries, modern astronomy in Bosnia started with a single
individual. Around the turn of the century, a high-school student in Pale, near
Sarajevo, built himself a small telescope. The student, Branimir Truhelka, went on
to study physics in Vienna and astronomy at the Pulkovo Observatory near St.
Petersburg in Russia, once considered the astronomical capital of the world. On his
return to Bosnia, Truhelka taught at a high school in Tuzla, where he continued his
research on light dispersion and lobbied the Bosnian government for a small
observatory in Tuzla. He died in 1945, never realizing his plans for an observatory
in Sarajevo.

That cause was taken up again in the 1960s by Bosnian amateur astronomers,
mostly university and high-school students. They founded the Astronomical Society
of the University of Sarajevo in 1963 and built the People's Observatory, with a
17-centimeter (7-inch) reflector, in 1965. By 1973, amateurs had converted an old
Austro-Hungarian fortress into the largest amateur observatory in Yugoslavia,
Colina Kapa. The observatory was located at an altitude of 1010 meters (3310
feet) on Mount Trebevic, 12 kilometers (7 miles) southeast of downtown. Its twin
domes housed the double astrograph that made the first Yugoslav photographic
atlas in the mid-1970s.

Like many amateurs elsewhere, the Sarajevans advanced to the point that the
term ``amateur'' no longer applied to them. The 65-centimeter (24-inch)
Newtonian-Cassegrain reflector and photoelectric photometer they installed in the
early 1980s were professional-level equipment. The observatory hosted the fourth
conference of Yugoslav astronomers in October 1979. The Sarajevans
participated in the epsilon Aurigae monitoring campaign and collaborated with
Czech and Croatian professionals during the 1980s. In 1990, the observatory had
a staff of five continuing to work on photometry.

Astronomy in Yugoslavia boomed in popularity during the late 1970s and early
1980s. New amateur clubs sprang up; secondary schools and the university taught
astronomy courses; people from all over the country joined the Sarajevo-based
astronomical society. Sarajevan amateurs assembled a library, organized seminars,
and spoke to school groups. The society published 30 books, making it the most
prolific publisher of astronomical literature in the country. Most Yugoslav
astronomy magazines tended to be either too technical or too populist, but the
Sarajevan journal, Astro Amateur, tried to strike a balance.

In 1992, the Astronomical Observatory of Sarajevo was used by Bosnian Serb
tanks for target practice, and demolished.

This article was assembled from reports by Bratislav Curcic, Ales Dolzan,
Jasminko Mulaomerovic, Muhamed Muminovic, and Vladis Vujnovic.

Bosnian Astronomy now - Bosanska Astronomija sada
And below is image HOW IS NOW... a ispod je slika KA KO JE SADA...

The Astronomical Observatory of Sarajevo. The observatory is a converted Austro-Hungarian fortress on Mount Trebevic, near the Olympic bobsled run. The newer dome on the left was built by amateurs in the late 1970s.