... History of the SAO RAS (in Russian) . ... The Special Astrophysical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences (SAO RAS) was founded in 1966. ... The main instruments of the Observatory are the Big Telescope Alt-azimuthal (BTA) , an optical reflector with the primary mirror 6 metres in diameter and the radio telescope RATAN-600 (abbreviated from the RAdio Telescope of the Academy of Sciences) with a 600 metre multielement ring antenna. ... The Astrophysical Bulletin journal in Russian and...