THAT MYSTERIOUS MAN
AND HIS LUNETTE

A man, a lunette…
a tender connection to
the Cosmos’ secrets.
-Andrei Dorian Gheorghe-


-ASTRO-DEBATE 2010-

Dragos Bora:

Recently I saw in the Bucurestii Vechi (Old Bucharest) web site
some photographs with the lunette used a long time ago
by a mysterious astronomy popularizer in the middle of Bucharest.
One is since 1930s and one since 1960s.





Andrei Dorian Gheorghe:

In fact, the former coordinator of
Admiral Vasile Urseanu Bucharest Municipal Observatory,
Dr. Harald Alexandrescu (1945-2005),
told that even the creator of astronomy popularization
as a cultural genre in Romania,
Victor Anestin (1875-1918),
described that man and his lunette in an article since 1910s.

Mihai Itza:

Yes, I remember that my father told me how
he watched for the first time the Moon through a lunette,
next to the Bucharest Military Centre,
and I’m sure it was the same lunette.
Usually, people stood in a queue…

Danut Ionescu:

In 1990s,
when I refounded Victor Anestin’s astronomical magazine Orion,
I tried for a while to continue the work
made by that man
by inviting the people to watch the sky through my telescope,
installed in the University Square, close to the Military Circle.

Alin Tolea:

Judging after the photographic details,
I think that in reality the lunette was a Newton telescope…

Andrei Dorian Gheorghe:

Harald Alexandrescu described that lunette as follows:

“It was a white metalic lunette,
its main tube having 10-15cm and a length of about 2m.
It was installed on a classic tripod,
the entire image being quite neat.”

As Harald Alexandrescu used to recover objects valuable for astronomy
(for instance, he recovered the astronomical instruments used in 1970s
by Lucia Dimiu and her Bucharestian group
at the Sirius place in the Herastrau Park),
he launched in 2003 a call for recovering that lunette
because his own investigation had stopped before in the town of Braila,
where the inheritors of the owner of the lunette lived;

thus,
he found out that they had donated the lunette to the local Culture House,
that had tried later to repair it at a local military unit…
and the traces of the lunette had disappeared here.

Dimitrie Olenici:

But maybe that man used different instruments in different times…
Anyway, as he popularized astronomy for over 50 years by his lunette,
he fully deserves to be included
in the Romanian Golden Book of Astronomy Popularizers…

Andrei Dorian Gheorghe:

Yes, but nobody knows his name.
However, it is interesting that he disappeared just before
the birth of the Bucharest Astroclub in 1968.
So I propose to include him
in the Romanian Golden Book of Astronomy Popularizers
as in the last part of my quatrain below:

Every clear night for over 50 years,
under the sky roulette,
A LUMINOUS ANGEL IN BUCHAREST
AND HIS SUPERB LUNETTE…

*

Design: Florin Stancu

© 2010 SARM
(Romanian Society for Meteors and Astronomy)