According to a Roman saying – only good or nothing about dead person. This saying is not the reason that only good could be said about Markarian. He had a great, inestimable contribution in the science. All his works – the study and classification of open clusters, the investigation together with V.A. Ambartsumian of stellar associations, the detailed colorimetric study of galaxies, and, finally, the ultraviolet survey of the sky, in the result of which now well-known MARKARIAN galaxies have been discovered, are considered as classical.
Markarian was very scrupulous to the study he made. He was publishing the obtained result only after multiple check-ups.
I owe to Markarian for becoming an astronomer. For some reason it was decided in Byurakan in 1953 that only girl graduates on astronomy specialty of the Yerevan University would be taken for work in Byurakan. Contrary to this decision, Markarian took me as his associate yet in March, before the defense of diplomas and the end of the State exams in the University. It was Markarian, who persuaded me in August of the same year to become a graduate student on radio astronomy. My scientific carrier could be obstructed seriously in 1958, if not the Markarian's fateful advice. I somewhat covered my depth to Markarian, when in May 1965 I wrote him from Australia about the results of radio observations of galaxies I made at the Parks Radio Observatory. Before that, in 1963, Markarian published a list of galaxies the colour of which was bluer than that of expected from their morphological types. Markarian made an important conclusion that the excess blue colour of these galaxies is not due to starlight. I informed him that about 80% of galaxies of his list have radio emission, while radio emission was detected from only 20% of other galaxies. This result showed that galaxies with excess blue colour, indeed, have non-stellar radiation. This somehow stimulated the beginning of the program of ultraviolet sky survey which at that time was under discussion in Byurakan. This program turned to be extremely fruitful for the investigation of the nature of galaxies and their nuclei.
Prof. Hrant M. TOVMASSIAN
Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory (BAO), Armenia
and INAOE, Puebla, Mexico