For Global Astronomy Month 2020 (125): Echo (19)

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For Global Astronomy Month 2020 (125): Echo (19) - Back to Reality (1)

By Andrei Dorian Gheorghe (text), Andee Sherwood (motto), Valentin Grigore (photos) and Florin Alexandru Stancu (design)

Published: Monday, November 30 -0001 00:00

“The world really needs more ways for mankind to view the night sky.
Perhaps they could put down their cell phones and do more stargazing.
Wouldn't that be nice?”
-Andee Sherwood (AWB Astropoetry Blog editor)-

After I closed my GAM time tunnel, I wanted to see the first pictures taken by Valentin Grigore in Targoviste (not in the least, he was the first Romanian sky lover who published a photo in the famous magazine “Sky & Telescope”) after the relaxation of the pandemic restrictions in Romania.

(The open general attempt to remake Victor Anestin’s Romanian astronomical society (founded in 1908) after modern criteria by both amateurs and professionals in 1992 was a failure because of too many vanities in a country devastated morally by 45 years of communism.

To fill this gap, Valentin Grigore founded the Romanian Society for Meteors and Astronomy (SARM) in 1993, the second national astronomical society in Romania’s history, starting from meteors as apparent guides through the constellations to other astronomical fields, basing on his astronomy-culture-art-education-society concept, trying to attract the elite of Romanian sky lovers as members or collaborators, assuming the role of organizer of uncounted national and international events, contests, projects and expeditions (in Romania and around the world), managing the participation in global programs and world conferences, and creating even the national astronomical TV Show, “Noi si Cerul” / Us and the Sky.

But the main passions of Valentin Grigore have remained meteors and landscape astrophotography, so I chose three pictures he took during his first urban expedition in the new conditions on May 16, 2020).

On Earth, people
Fighting a pandemic.
In the sky, the Moon and morning planets
Fighting a cloud of Saharan dust.
But we are not fallen down
If we can enjoy Jupiter
Surrounded by a crown.
-Andrei Dorian Gheorghe-