Radio Objects with Continuous Optical Spectra, or ROCOSes, were discovered in the 1970s. Among the discoverers was a group of Soviet astrophysicists, who studied them at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory and the Special Astrophysical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Science, using the former's 2.6-meter optical telescope and the latter's 6-meter optical telescope (BTA-6), along with a 1000-channel photon counter and photometers. The group published their findings in a series of articles in the Russian scientific journals Astronomy Letters and Astronomy Reports.