The institute is focused on stellar, solar and galactic astronomy, meteors, and motion of cosmic bodies. It has about 70 permanent employees, of which roughly 80% work in Ondřejov. It is divided into the following departments:
Department of Solar Physics
This department primarily studies the regions of solar eruptions by making use of optical telescopes and radio telescopes for observations. The head of the department is František Fárník.
Department of Interplanetary Matter
Meteors, comets, and asteroids are the main research targets of this department. The meteors are observed by optical telescopes and a meteoric radar. Photo-metric observations of asteroids are done using a 65 cm optical telescope. The head of the department is Pavel Spurný.
This department is focused on research of stars. It focuses mainly on studies of hot stars, models of stellar atmospheres, dynamics of stellar winds and relativistic astrophysics. Here they use the biggest telescope in the Czech Republic, which has a large reflector with a two meter wide mirror. The head of the department is Jiří Kubát. The department is also conducting research under the leadership of René Hudec on gamma and roentgen radiation in the Universe by observation of gamma bursts or blazars.
This department is situated in Prague. It mainly deals with the research of the effects of the solar system on the Earth. The head of the department is Jan Palouš. The department also contains a "Group of Dynamics of Space Satellites", which deals with theoretical and practical studies of the motion of space satellites. Its main research project was the micro-accelerometer, Macek, for measurements of accelerations of non-gravitational origin. Macek was released in the year 1996 on the space shuttle Atlantis and in the year 2003 on the Czech satellite MIMOSA.
History
The Astronomical Institute is descended from an observatory founded at the beginning of 18th century by Jesuits College in Prague. After World War I, the observatory was renamed the "State Astronomical Observatory". In 1940, it was moved to an undistinguished apartment building in Prague. Long before that, in 1898, there was another private observatory being built by Josef Jan Frič in Ondřejov. This small observatory was donated by him to the state of Czechoslovakia in 1928. After the establishment of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, it was merged with the State Astronomical Observatory to create the Astronomical Institute.
