Volodymyr Golovatyj

Ukraine

1940-2018

Obituary:

Volodymyr Golovatyi graduated from the Faculty of Geodesy of Polytechnic Institute of Lviv in 1966. While studying in this Institute, since 1963 till 1965, he was working as laboratory assistant, and later, from 1965 to 1976, – as junior researcher in Astronomical Observatory of Lviv University. In 1974, under the scientific supervision of V.I. Pronik, he defended Ph.D. thesis "Investigation of the physical conditions in Crab Nebula filaments". Since 1976 till 1977, and from 1981 to 1996 he was working as senior researcher in Astronomical Observatory of Ivan Franko State University of Lviv. Between 1977 and 1981 he was working as deputy director for research in Astronomical Observatory (1977–1979), and as associate professor at Physics Department of Lviv University (1979–1981). Since 1996 till 2015 he was working as associate professor at Astrophysics Department of Ivan Franko National University of Lviv. He retired in 2015, but still worked as an astrophysicist, having published several scientific papers. He passed away in 2018, January 26.

The research field of Volodymyr Golovatyi included the physics of non-stationary stars, symbiotic stars, supernovae remnants, planetary nebulae, as well as the low-metallicity HII regions in Blue Compact Dwarf Galaxies. He developed the research related to the diagnostic of nebular emission line spectra, the photionization modeling of nebular environments, the methods of determination the energy distribution in Lyman continuum, the effective temperatures of planetary nebulae nuclei, the chemical compositions of various nebular objects, the clarification of the primordial helium abundanceits enrichment during stellar chemical evolution of matter in the Universe as well as participated in compilation of catalogue of atomic data for low-density astrophysical plasma. Volodymyr Golovatyi has published more than 100 papers and the book “Glow Physics of Gaseous Nebulae. Tutorial”.