What is VSA anyway?

Meteor Group (2003), around fish-eye
camera used for video observations

VSA, or Visnjan School of Astronomy, is a summer workshop of astronomy located in the Visnjan Observatory, situated in the western part of the Istrian highlands, near the city of Porec, Croatia. It represents a continuing experiment in an attempt to merge scientific projects and high school students education. Students are treated like research colleagues in the scientific process. Created in the Visnjan Observatory, VSA represents the result of many years' work of its organizers and founders. Nineteen years till now VSA has been combining scientific work with learning, and throughout the years many scientific moments occurred, eg. discovery of 2003QA asteroid.

Main topics

Main research topic at Visnjan Observatory is the study of the small bodies of the Solar System. Except of looking for new objects, we also keep track of known bodies and contribute in determining the orbits of newly discovered objects from the NEO confirmation page.

Asteroid Group (2005) discussing shape
of observed asteroid

Traditionally, there has always been a group for meteors' study. The interaction of meteors with the high atmosphere is a continuation of a program that started 20 years ago, while light pollution is contemporary problem, not only for astronomical observations, but it also has highly negative impact on animals and plants, and humans as well. So, dealing with light pollution is becoming a surviving topic. Technical research areas include telescope construction, automatization technology, data analysis, storage software and future "planetary rovers" discussion, design and construction.

Main topics this year will be:

• Small Bodies of the Solar System
• Light pollution