Vasily Fesenkov

After graduating from the Kharkov University (1911) he entered the Sorbonne, where he defended a dissertation for the Doctor of Science degree in 1914; in between he interned at the Paris, Meudon, and Nice observatories.

He was the first to make a study of Zodiacal light using photometry, and suggested a theory of its dynamics.

He founded the Astrophysical Institute in Alma-Ata (currently Almaty) and was its director until his retirement in 1964.

In 1947 he travelled to the site of the Tunguska event and estimated the mass and orbit of the impact body.

A minor planet 2286 Fesenkov discovered in 1977 by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh is named after him.