Abstract

VI Byurakan International Summer School (6BISS) will take place at Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory on September 10-15, 2018. During the school the students will have practical tutorial sessions on spectroscopy, photometry, statistics, as well as will get acquainted with the Astronomical Surveys, Databases, Archives and Virtual Observatory tools. The Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory is one of the main observational centers of the former Soviet Union and is an important observatory with modern facilities in the region. It was founded in 1946 by V.A. Ambartsumian and is well known for its large spectroscopic surveys: the First and Second Byurakan Surveys, undertaken by B.E. Markarian and colleagues. The Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory hosts a number of medium-size optical telescopes, the most important being the 2.6m classical telescope and 1m Schmidt telescope. The Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory holds the Digitized First Byurakan Survey (DFBS, or the Markarian survey), containing low-dispersion spectra of ~20,000,000 objects, which is the basis of the Armenian Virtual Observatory (ArVO), a member of the International Virtual Observatory Alliance (IVOA).