Vitold Karlovich Tserasky also spelled Witold Cerasky (Russian:Витольд Карлович Цераский; 9 May 1849 – 29 May 1925) was a Russian astronomer and inventor of astronomical tools and techniques. The asteroid 807 Ceraskia and the Lunar crater Tseraskiy are named after him. Tserasky was born in

Slutsk Slutsk ( officially transliterated as Sluck, be, Слуцк; russian: Слуцк; pl, Słuck, lt, Sluckas, Yiddish/Hebrew: סלוצק ''Slutsk'') is a city in Belarus, located on the Sluch River south of Minsk. As of 2022, its population is ...

, Minsk where his father of Polish–Lithuanian descent was a geography teacher. A visit of

Donati's comet :''There are three Donati comets: C/1855 L1 (a.k.a. 1855 II), C/1858 L1 (this one), and C/1864 R1 (a.k.a. 1864 I).'' Comet Donati, or Donati's Comet, Astronomical naming conventions#Comets, formally designated C/1858 L1 and 1858 VI, is a List of n ...

in 1858 sparked an interest in Tserasky and he joined Moscow University in 1867 where he spent time at the astronomical observatory . He joined the astronomical observatory as an assistant and made a trip in 1874 to

Kyakhta Kyakhta (russian: Кя́хта, ; bua, Хяагта, Khiaagta, ; mn, Хиагт, Hiagt, ) is a town and the administrative center of Kyakhtinsky District in the Republic of Buryatia, Russia, located on the Kyakhta River near the Mongolia–Russi ...

to make observations on the

transit of Venus frameless, upright=0.5 A transit of Venus across the Sun takes place when the planet Venus passes directly between the Sun and a superior planet, becoming visible against (and hence obscuring a small portion of) the solar disk. During a trans ...

. He then took an interest in astronomical photography and in 1883 he received a master's degree for techniques in determining the brightness of white stars. He invented techniques which are now used in the Zöllner-Tserasky photometer. He began to teach in the Higher school for women from the 1870s and married the astronomer Lidiya Petrovna Shelekhova in 1884. Lidiya is known for discovering numerous variable stars. He became a professor of astronomy in 1889. In 1890 he became director of the Moscow observatory. He retired in 1916 in Fedosiya, Crimea but returned to live with his son in Moscow where he died.

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Tserasky, Vitold 1849 births 1925 deaths Russian astronomers