Russian/Former Soviet Union Experience in Professional Small Telescope Usage

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FSU astronomers traditionally use small telescopes (⊘ ≤1.5 m, hereafter STs) for both science and education. Russian/FSU experience here is among the largest world-wide. There are only 2 large and moderate-sized facilities in whole Russia: the 6 m telescope of SAO RAS and Russian-Ukrainian 2 m one on the 3100 m high peak Terskol in Central Caucasus.

Equipped with good light receivers and handled by skilled observers, STs can produce first class scientific data. Important results are typically yielded by long-time sequences of observations and/or new observational “know how”: good instrument/receiver design, appropriate selection of objects and moments, etc. Examples of what has been done with STs in FSU, within my memory, (in the last ≃ 1/3 century) are listed below, without a list of references, because of lack of space. The author plans to publish a larger article on this subject in Astr.&Aph.Trans.