Press Release

NAS RA V. Ambartsumian Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory (BAO)
Press release 17.07.2023

70TH ANNIVERSARY OF DR. TIGRAN MAGAKIAN

On July 16, BAO principal research associate Dr. Tigran Yu. Magakian celebrated his 70th anniversary.

Tigran Magakian was born on July 16, 1953 in Yerevan, Armenia. He graduated from the Yerevan State University, Department of Astrophysics in 1975 and started working at the Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory (BAO). He was a post-graduate during 1976-78, and defended his PhD thesis in 1979 on study of the so-called cometary nebulae.

In 1989 he became a senior research associate and head of a research group. In 2001 Magakian defended a doctoral thesis on the anisotropic activity of pre-main-sequence stars. From 2001 he is a leading research associate at the Byurakan Observatory.

For many years he has been involved in the observations on 2.6m telescope in Byurakan and on 6m telescope of Special Astrophysical Observatory (Russia), actively using the most modern methods of astronomical spectroscopy.

Tigran Magakian has published more than 130 papers in major astronomical journals (A&A, Russian Astron. J, Astrofizika, etc.) which are devoted to the study of young stellar objects in our Galaxy. He also published a Merged catalogue of reflection nebulae (A&A, 399, 141, 2003).

T. Magakian’s research interests concern Herbig-Haro objects, T Tauri stars, cometary nebulae, jets from young stars, and many other objects and phenomena. Among his other achievements are the studies of so-called spectral asymmetry in cometary nebulae and discoveries and thorough analysis of many dozens of Herbig-Haro objects.

Magakian has participated in a number of international astronomy meetings, including JENAM, IAU Symposia and Colloquia. On his initiative, new international collaborations have been established with French, Japanese, UK and USA astronomers.

As an interesting and unusual hobby of Magakian his participation in various games on intellect and erudition should be mentioned, where he had many achievements and received the “Crystal Owl” award by the Armenian and Russian TV channels. Magakian is a member of the International Astronomical Union (IAU, 1988), the European Astronomical Society (EAS, 1991), the Euro-Asian Astronomical Society (EAAS, 1996) and the Armenian Astronomical Society (1999). He was one of the active founders of our society in 1999-2001. In 2002, Magakian was elected in the Scientific-Technical Council of EAAS.

Meline Asryan