For Global Astronomy Month 2020 (121): Echo (15) - GAM Time Tunnel (14)

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

Published: Tuesday, June 09 2020 19:34

• Previous
• Next

I jump rope over
the trajectories of the heavenly bodies,
invisible curved lines,
the paths of universal harmony.
Let your good luck be
the compass of infinity,
soul dreaming of being
the envelope of
the family of curves!
-Andrei Dorian Gheorghe (Orion - the magazine of the Bucharest Astroclub, March 1991)-

The Bucharestian engineer Radu Mihai Gherase is a former technical astrophotography laureate at the national astrophotography contests organized by the Romanian Society for Meteors and Astronomy-SARM and, through big material sacrifices, made a private observatory named “Stardreams” in Valenii de Munte (100 km distance from Bucharest) in 2012. 

He is a member of the Bucharest Astroclub, the main local astronomical group, who:

-was created in 1968 in addition to the Bucharest Municipal Observatory (around the personality of the legendary “solarist” Vladimir Boico), moved in 2016 besides the Astronomical Institute of the Romanian Academy (to assist it for various research themes and to develop weekly meetings) and is a member of Astronomers Without Borders;

-is orientated on technical astronomy (especially variable stars, asteroids, deep sky and astrophotography), cooperating with international astronomical institutions, organizing courses for students, observations in public places and short observational expeditions;

-had “open times” for astrohumanism in the 1990s, when Danut Ionescu edited the magazine Orion - in the pages of which he gathered an entire elite of amateur and professional astronomers, and for which he invited me to publish a mini-series of astropoetry -, and Calin Niculae & Zoltan Deak edited the Bucharest Astroclub Newsletter (these three complex sky lovers became also members of SARM);

-benefited by the strong support (including impressive astronomical collections) of the famous Romanian-French astrophotographer Jean Dragesco and the Romanian-American astronomer Alin Tolea;

-edits currently the on-line magazine “Vega”;

-won (in association with the Bucharest Municipal Observatory) the Plan B Award in the Galilean Nights world program in 2009; 

-was a usual participant in the national and international events organized by SARM since 1993 (including the annual national conference of the Romanian astronomical associations); 

-participated in the Asteroid Search Campaign on-line program (organized by Astronomers Without Borders and International Astronomical Search Collaboration) and gave a few on-line conferences about black holes (Cristian-Mircea Stancu) and spectroscopy in astronomy (Daniel Bertesteanu) during GAM 2020). 

Radu Gherase is also a good friend of SARM: he was a participant in SARM’s overseas expeditions (to the European Northern Observatory in the Canary Islands and to Latin America for the observation of a total solar eclipse) and part of the SARM team at International Meteor Conference 2011 in Sibiu, Romania (for which SARM was the local organizer), where he read a meteor poem in the last edition of the annual IMC astropoetry show (created and coordinated by SARM since 1997).

It’s not enough to make a building
To accomplish your fascinating dream.
In a private observatory
You need to catch at least an astral beam.
-Andrei Dorian Gheorghe-

My time tunnel found that during GAM 2020 he used his private observatory to photograph the Eskimo Nebula (in the constellation Gemini), the Venus-Pleiades meeting and Comet ATLAS.

“At the Stardreams Observatory,
always ready to “rock and roll”,
as long as the “watchdog” weather station allows it.”
-Radu Gherase-