(Source: http://forum.chileno.ru)

Russian and Chilean astronomers reached an agreement on the return of the Main (Pulkovo) Observation Station of the Astronomical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences to work in Chile.

As the observatory director Aleksandr Stepanov reported to ITAR-TASS on Wednesday, the Rector of the University of Chile Victor Perez Vera will visit the Observatory on May, 22. “It is expected that during this visit the agreement will be signed”- Stepanov stated. Russian specialists in Chile will resume their work on the telescope AZT-16 produced by LOMO. It is installed in the Observatory Cerro El Roble (a part of the University of Chile). “Chilean astronomical climate is the best in the world. There is a little water vapor, the atmosphere is highly transparent, which increases the accuracy of astronomical observations. We could do a survey of the entire southern sky in two to four weeks” - the deputy director of Pulkovo Observatory for Science Aleksandr Devyatkin told to ITAR-TASS.

Work in Chile.
The work of Russian astronomers on the Chilean observation station located a hundred kilometers from the capital city of Santiago de Chile was interrupted 41 years ago because of the change of the political regime in the South American country (the overthrow of President Allende and the assumption of power by the junta). In 2013 Russian astronomers visited Chile, inspected the conservated telescope LOMO AZT-16 and began works on its modernization.

The agreement with the University of Chile will complete the revival of the observation station and enable our astronomers to work in the place which is most favorable on Earth for astronomy. Stepanov said that the restoration of the Chilean observation station is not the most important scientific event for Russia in Latin America. Earlier the works resumed on the facility of the same kind in Bolivia. In Soviet times Pulkovo Observatory had a total of five remote observation stations: in Chile, Bolivia, Tajikistan, Armenia and Azerbaijan.