For Global Astronomy Month 2020 (168): Inertia of Inertia (14)

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

Published: Wednesday, July 29 2020 06:34

• Previous
• Next

THREE BELL TOWERS IN BUCHAREST
Astro-photo-poem (cosmopoem) by Andrei Dorian Gheorghe

On June 22, 2020,
I caught the Summer Triangle in the Youth Park,
a celestial symbol-clock which announces
months with the Sun’s superior power
in the northern hemisphere.

Then I had a revelation:
I cropped a two-dimensional image
with the tree stars
in my mind
and moved it to the right bank
of the Dambovita River.

And I remarked that three old bell towers
were built in similar positions there.

Bell towers announcing the exact hour
(an astronomical act, anyway),
where people were closer to the Sun
and freer to study its movements…
Aren’t they ancestors
of the modern solar telescope towers?

So I toured them as fast as I could.

June 24, 2020.
Altair (very low on the right) was
the bell tower of the Mihai Voda Church
(made in the 1590s by the first unifier of the Romanian states,
Mihai Viteazul the Brave).

June 25, 2020.
Vega (up in the centre) was
the bell tower of the Patriarchy (Mitropoly) Hill
(made in the 1780s by the martyr ruler
Constantin Brancoveanu).

July 1, 2020.
Deneb (lower left) was
the bell tower of the Radu Voda Church
(founded in the 1510s and remade in the 1620s).

And I thought that maybe
in honor of historical continuity,
every solar telescope tower
should be equipped
with a bell.