LIKE A BIG KID
NEAR THE CHILDREN OBSERVATORY

-text and photos Andrei Dorian Gheorghe
design Florin Alexandru Stancu-

The new seat of the National Children Palace in Bucharest
was inaugurated in 1 June 1986 at the edge of the Youth Park,
many future important Romanians being supplementarily educated here
in various circles of aptitudes.

In December 2014, seeing among tree branches, near the sunset,
the back walls of this modern palace,
including the cupola of the astronomical observatory,
I thought about the connection between children and stars via teachers.

The first who led the astronomical circle of the National Children Palace
was Gheorghe Vass,
a professional astronomer who changed
research for education.
He also presented many lectures at events
organized by the Romanian Society for Meteors and Astronomy (SARM).
In the 2010s an asteroid discovered by EURONEAR
(the international project led by one of his former students,
Ovidiu Vaduvescu,
a Romanian astronomer working overseas)
was named after him.

Mr. Vass was followed by Mariana Tulbure,
who brought many groups of pre-university students
to participate at SARM’s Perseid events in the 1990s.

After her, the circle was led by Adrian Pruna,
who organized here (with the support of
Dragos Brasov, the president of the Urania Astronomical Association)
more local editions of the International Astronomy Day.
He was also… an actor in the Astropoetry Show presented by SARM
at the International Meteor Conference 2011 in Armagh (Northern Ireland).

Then Minodora Carmen Lipcanu,
a teacher of mathematics-astronomy and a passionate astrophotographer,
organized a few editions of the national astrophotography contest
for high school students, the best works being selected
for the international cosmopoetry superprojects of SARM.

Because 2015 was the International Year of Light,
right on the first of its days I decided
to take more pictures with the children observatory
for preparing my personal-moral celebration of its 30 year-jubilee in 2016.

2015, 1ST QUARTER

2015, 2ND QUARTER
(more ambitious visions,
with Venus, stars of Orion, Moon, Sun, Jupiter…)

2015, 2nd SEMESTER

I didn’t stop here…

I continued to take pictures over there in the first part of 2016, too
(sunsets, dusks, Moon, a solar reflection on a window, even Jupiter,
along with the evolution of nature)…

In 17 May 2016
an impressive cumulonimbus cloud in that zone
made me program something special.

And in 18 May 2016,
the day when my departed mother would have turned 82,
I made a photo-session around the children observatory,
thinking to honor all mothers who want their children to learn astronomy
and to become superior citizens.

Take care of what you plant
For your followers
Because it’s not easy to see
The seed of astronomy!

LIKE A BIG KID NEAR THE CHILDREN OBSERVATORY

LIKE A BIG KID
NEAR THE CHILDREN OBSERVATORY