A star on the horizon

In science, as in history, sometimes names appear that can be compared to a supernova. For our city, the name of Nykyfor Kalinenkov was once such a bright scientific supernova. The year 2024 marks the 100th anniversary of Nykyfor’s birth.

Nykyfor went through the Second World War. After the war, he graduated from university, gaining knowledge from the best astronomers of the time. Since 1967, he has been working at the Mykolaiv Shipbuilding Institute and later at the Mykolaiv State Pedagogical Institute. At his own expense and on his own projects, he installed unique equipment on the territory of the institute, which for a long time had no analogues in the whole country, and which allows to conduct world-class research to this day.

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Nykyfor Dmytrovych’s birth, Admiral Makarov National University of Shipbuilding handed unique equipment, documents and textbooks from the observatory and the scientist’s private collection to our museum, which are used to form the exhibition.

Curators of the exhibition: Illia Khvorostianiuk, Kateryna Barbaianova

Scientific consultant: Olha Serhienko, Head of the Research laboratory “N. D. Kalinenkov Astronomical Observatory” of V. O. Sukhomlynskyi Mykolaiv National University