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NIKOLSKY
Gennady
Mikhailovich
(1929 - 1982)
Gennady Mikhailovich Nikolsky
was born on September
28, 1929 in Rostov-on-Don, Russia. He obtained a degree in
Astrophysics from the Astronomical Department of Kiev State University
in 1953, where he took up his first job as a scientific assistant to
Professor S.K.Vsekhsvyatsky. In 1956 - 1958
he joined the Astrophysical Institute in Alma-Ata where he
studied the zodiacal light, planets, and the airglow. Since 1958 up to
his last day he worked in the Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism,
Ionosphere and Radio Wave Propagation of the USSR Academy of Sciences (IZMIRAN).
Here he set up the Laboratory
of Solar Activity which became famous to all experts in Solar Physics.
Professor Nikolsky has been mainly involved in research on the chromosphere,
solar corona and the interplanetary medium.
In the early sixties he made major contribution, jointly with G.S.Ivanov-Kholodny,
in research on the EUV solar emission and
the structure of the chromosphere - corona transition region.
Gennady
Nikolsky was a brilliant experimentator and observer. He designed, jointly
with A.A.Sazanov, the world largest coronagraph,
of the Lyot type, with a 535 mm objective diameter. Using such a coronagraph
installed at the Kislovodsk High-Altitude Station (Caucasus), important
results have been obtained on the fine structure of the solar chromosphere.
Lately Nikolsky had been actively involved in the design of a new magnetograph
based on a Fabry-Perot interferometer, and directed to measurements of
weak chromospheric and coronal magnetic fields.
Professor
Nikolsky was generally recognised as an authority in solar
eclipse observations. His efforts in promoting
space research have been also remarkable. He had been the promotor of the
Artifical Solar Eclipse Experiment realized at the joint Soviet - American
mission Apollo - Soyuz in
1975. In 1982, with the Soviet - French crew aboard Salyut-7, Nikolsky
had been adviser on the Soviet part of the PCN experiment. Unique color
photographs of the zodiacal light and
of the ionospheric glow
were obtained then. Lately, Nikolsky had developed ideas on new and original
experiments and studies which he had no time to fulfill.
Professor
Gennady Nikolsky passed away on December 20, 1982, in his 54th year, after
a serious illness. His death in the prime of his creative life was a great
loss for the astronomic community.
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