0000000000394016

AUTHOR

M. Eglite

Chernobyl Clean-Up Workers: 17 Years of Follow-Up in Latvia

About 5000 Latvian inhabitants took part at clean up works after accident on Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant during 1986–1991. Clinical follow-up programme showed that clean-up workers having higher morbidity rate compare to the general population with prevalence of poly–symptomatic sicknesses caused by depression of immune system. Dose reconstruction made by Electron Paramagnetic Resonance (EPR) indicated underestimation of officially documented doses by factor 2-10. Blood measurement performed by Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP MS) indicated elevated concentration of lead, cadmium and thorium. It was assumed that toxic compounds, physical stress, incorporated long-lived ra…

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BALDONE SCHMIDT (LATVIA) TELESCOPE ASTROPHOTOS ARCHIVE

From 1967 to 2005, many astrophotos have been taken with the Baldone Schmidt telescope (80cmx120cmx240cm). These photos have being archived in theInstituteofAstronomyof theUniversityofLatvia(IAU code 069, longitude 24.4041 E, latitude 56.7734 N, altitude103 m). There are over 22000 direct and 2300 spectral photos of different regions of the sky in this archive. There are also information on the photo materials type as well as the types of color filters used for phographiing the sky fields and objects. The home page of theInstituteofAstronomy’s Baldone observatory (www.baldoneobservatory.lu.lv) has the archive’s description. Part of the description has also being published (Alksnis, et al., …

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OBTAINING POSITIONS OF ASTEROIDS FROM DIGITIZED PROCESSING OF PHOTOGRAPHIC OBSERVATIONS IN BALDONE OBSERVATORY (CODE 069)

Digital processing of photographic plates of star fields allows to determine with high accuracy the coordinates and stellar magnitudes for all registered objects on these plates. The processing results can be used for a broad search for images of small bodies of the Solar system and determination of their coordinates. From the observations of earlier epoch, we can extract information about the locations of these bodies well before discovering them. Modern approach to processing early photographic observations with new technologies can be an effective instrument for rediscovery of asteroids and correction their orbits. We analyzed the results of digital processing of observations of clusters…

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The Optical And Epr Spectra of Fe(2+) and Fe(3+) Ions in the Blood of the Chernobyl Clean-Up Worker

Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) and optical absorption studies of blood were provided for the group of Chernobyl’s NPP accident clean-up workers examined in the Center of Occupational and Radiological medicine of P.Stradins Clinical hospital of Medical Academy of Latvia. The EPR spectra for blood have been studied at low temperature. It is shown that in blood the ion Fe3+ of methemaglobin is in low-spin state with g = 2.3 and in the high spin state with g=6. We observed the additional absorption bands 500 nm (shoulder) and 630 nm in absorption spectra of blood of Chernobyl clean-up worker who has erythrocytosis.

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UV-PHOTOMETRY WITH THE 1.2 M SCHMIDT TELESCOPE IN BALDONE

TheUniversityofLatvia's Institute of astronomy possesses a collection of 22 thousand photographic plates taken by the1.2 mSchmidt telescope located at the Baldone observatory. Among others, there are 767 astronegatives in this collection obtained in 314 sky areas using the Johnson U-filter. The field of view of each negative covers 19 square degrees. The plate scale is 72”/mm. The digitizing of the UV-collection has started in June 2016 with EPSON EXPRESSION 10000XL flatbed scanner. The general aim of the digitizing is to obtain UV-magnitudes and positions of all objects registered on the plates. Up to date near a half of the UV-collection is digitized. 24 digitized MEGA program plates of t…

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