For Global Astronomy Month 2020 (118): Echo (12) - GAM Time Tunnel (11)

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

Published: Sunday, June 07 2020 00:51

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A real lover of solar eclipses
Is always ready for reaction,
Even when not the Moon crosses the Sun,
But the International Space Station.
-Andrei Dorian Gheorghe-

The Bucharestian engineer Catalin Beldea is the most active Romanian hunter of total solar eclipses.  From 1999 he travels around the world to observe and photograph them and in 2008 he was the first Romanian astrophotographer awarded with a “NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day” (after him, a member of the Romanian Society for Meteors and Astronomy-SARM, Catalin Paduraru, received three such recognitions - in 2012, 2014 and 2016 -, a record for Romania).

“I know a miracle
as great as the Universe:
it’s a man, it’s me!”
-Dominic Diamant (Bucharest, former national astropoetry laureate)-

Catalin Beldea is the astronomy editor of “Stiinta si Tehnica” / Science and Technique, a central magazine with roots in the 1880s, and together with his colleagues (the famous popularizers of science Alexandru Mironov and Cristian Român, cosmonaut Dumitru Prunariu etc.) organizes Bucharest Astrofest since 2016 (unfortunately, the 2020 edition was annulated because of the pandemic), where SARM is always a guest of honor (along with Admiral Vasile Urseanu Bucharest Municipal Observatory, Bucharest Astroclub and Urania Astronomical Association-National Children’s Palace - the list of participants being permanently open).

In 2012 Catalin Beldea initiated Eclipser, a Science and Technique project (with the support of the Romanian Space Agency-ROSA, YO3KSR Ham Radio Club and Australian collaborators), which realized the world’s highest flight of a scientific space balloon in the shadow cone of a total solar eclipse (36,800 m) on November 14th in Australia.

My time tunnel remarked that during GAM 2020 he was an adept of balcony astronomy and photographed the three heavenly bodies which are reproduced on Romania’s coat of arms: Venus, Sun and Moon.

But that coat of arms does not include the Pleiades around Venus and the International Space Station crossing the Sun’s disk, which were caught in Catalin Beldea’s photos, who also left short poetical comments:

“Eight Sisters…” (Catalin Beldea)

“Three people locked in a container as big as a studio
passed over the Sun
and also over a Bucharest
still open on the basis of self-declarations.” (Catalin Beldea)

“Light from sunrise…” (Catalin Beldea)