For Global Astronomy Month 2020 (117): Echo (11) - GAM Time Tunnel (10)

By Andrei Dorian Gheorghe (text) and Florin Alexandru Stancu (design)

Published: Friday, June 05 2020 23:34

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“Ode to the Star Lalande 21185
(inspired from Romanian folklore)
By Mircea Pteancu

When a neighbor lady
sticks her head out the window,
I see a beautiful, orange and
luminous face.

Oh, my heart,
I don't know what astronomy did to you
Because as long as I live
I will make observations.”
(English translation from Romanian by Andrei Dorian Gheorghe)

Engineer Mircea Pteancu is the president of the Galaxis Astroclub (founded in 1987 in Arad, Crisana province in West / North-West Romania - former Dacian territory, Romanian-Slavic voivodeship and Magyar, Ottoman and Austrian possession, divided today between Hungary and Romania), which organized the first three national symposiums of amateur astronomers in Romania (1989-1991) and introduced the celebration of the Astronomy Day in this country (1992).

(Another astroclub in this region is “Meridian 0” in Oradea, founded in 2006 by teachers Nicoleta Pasmany and Marin Bica right on the ruins of the former Nagyvaradi citadel, where the Viennese astronomers Georg von Peuerbach and Regiomontanus established the Prime Meridian in the 15th century at the request of the archbishop Janos Vitez of Sredna during the Kingdom of Hungary. 

“Following the tradition toward new horizons,
I dream of an astronomical park in a bastion of the older citadel of Oradea,
with a sundial, a telescope and an asteroid belt with explanations.
We travel through the Universe with an astro-ship named Earth,
and if someone watches the sky on a clear night far from the lights of the towns,
he remains fascinated forever
and begins to put questions and to look for answers.”
-Nicoleta Pasmany-

Unfortunately, Marin Bica died in a tragic accident in 2013, but their students won an international astronomical contest in 2014 and obtained the right to name an asteroid after him).

In its history, the Galaxis Astroclub was also connected to the excellent builders of telescopes Attila Csillag and Nicolae Reinholz (who made a private observatory in Zadareni in 1984; he also discovered a comet in 1990, but lost the priority because - a historical tragedy for astronomy in Romania! - his documentation was “evaporated” on the road to the international authorities).

The Galaxis Astroclub popularized astronomy through various activities, developed international relations and participated at national symposiums and global events.

My GAM time tunnel found that Mircea Pteancu wrote the poem from above (about a famous red dwarf in Ursa Major) after a memorable observational night on April 22, 2020, when he travelled on-line “in the Empire of Leo Minor” to visit some of its galaxies, “based on screen captures of SDSS9 photos from Aladin Lite”, and noted his observations both on the computer and on a paper. 

Oh “galaxized” Lions!
We don’t know how much or if
The mythological fight with Hercules
Affected galactically
The constellated Leo (of Nemea),
But we can see
That his neighbor, the Smaller Lion,
Looks like he was free
To preserve
A large number of galaxies.
-Andrei Dorian Gheorghe-

At the same time, Balint Forro Eugen aka Eugen Balint (the most active astrophotographer in West Romania in the last years and the new “second” of Mircea Pteancu in the Galaxis Astroclub) took a few pictures by telescope (Venus, Saturn, Crater Plato on the Moon…).

I don’t like the big agglomerations,
So sometimes I’d like to go
To an interior planet,
At other times I’d like to go
To an exterior planet,
But finally I prefer to remain close to home,
On the Moon,
Which is a suburb of the Earth.
-Andrei Dorian Gheorghe-