ASTRONOMY

 

KORADO KORLEVIC, VISNJAN
Head of Visnjan Astronomical Observatory, founder of most small objects in the space

http://www.astro.hr/~korado/html/photos.html

Stars are all around us

Korado Korlevic
Born in the city of Porec 1958, he spent the college years in the city of Pula where he became an active member of the local amateur astronomical society. That was followed by years of observing, making telescopes and teaching. As student started he to teach gifted pupils the introduction to science through astronomical courses at the Amateur Astronomical Society of Visnjan. In the year 1981 he got a B.Sc. from the pedagogical faculty of Rijeka. From that period, the problem of the motivation of gifted children becomes a "file rogue" of the following years of work as teacher of polytechnics and computer science. At the end of the '80 with a group of "same thinkers" he started the "Yugoslav School of Astronomy", which after the war became known as "The Visnjan School of Astronomy". As an amateur astronomer he started to observe meteors seriously and participated in the IMO as the organization formed. The work on meteors culminated with the participation in the 1st International Tunguska Expedition, with two main projects. The search of the possible strewn field gave tens of kilograms of samples, from which drops of resin from the Tunguska explosion were extracted. The analysis of that resin and a long the tree rings specimen at the Bologna University resulted in a series of Italian expeditions during the following years. At that time the war in Croatia blocked nearly all activities, but the work whit gifted pupils at Visnjan was intensified.
Motivated by the problem of bright fireballs, the results of the analysis of the Tunguska samples and a growing perception that the next "Tunguska" is better if analyzed in space instead on the ground, Korado started the work to replace the Visnjan Observatory's telescope lost during the Bosnian war. After few years and help of a group of friends the new, specialized telescope produced the first astrometric line in the 1995. Very soon astrometry measurements were followed by the first discoveries of asteroids and comets from Croatia.
Korado Korlevic was the editor of the "Nebeske krijesnice" newsletter and referee for astronomical articles regarding small bodies and impact topics. The main challenge is still the search of better, more effective way to motivate the gifted pupils, and for that purpose few very different educational activities are organized at the Visnjan observatory. His free time is dedicated to family and the construction of astronomical instruments, meteor observations, micrometeorite analysis, optimization of asteroid and comet astrometry and their observations, workshops on methods of creative thinking, entomology excursions, painting, etc...


Member of the following associations:
- International Meteor Organization
- The Planetary Society
- Spaceguard Foundation
- Astronomical Society of the Pacific
- National Geographic Society
- Croatian entomological society
- Lions International

Honorary Member:
- Associazzione Friulana di Astronomia e Meteorologia-Udine
- Astrofili Forlivesi "J.Hevelius" - Forli'
- AD "Infinitum" - Zagreb