July 20, Hybrid, Bucharest

Details
Location: Astronomical Institute of the Romanian Academy, Bucharest
Time: 19.00 p.m. – 22.00 p.m.

Moon Day 2022, like other astronomical celebration days worldwide, is a great opportunity to educate the public of all ages on the specific topic of Moon exploration, as a part of the wider process of humanity to study the Universe. 

This year, July 20, 2022, the educational and scientific park of the Astronomical Institute of the Romanian Academy (AIRA) will form a ”launch pad” for the public to embark on a visual and narrative journey to our natural satellite, the Moon. For that, AIRA’s professional astronomers and educators will team with the amateur astronomers of Bucharest Astroclub and together, they will organize several complementary educational activities during the event. 

The first of them will start at 19.00 p.m. and it will consist of a guided tour in the Meridian Hall of Bucharest Astronomical Observatory. Here, the educator and astronomy historian Sorin Marin will present to the public several thematic areas of this museum hall, which in the past was a vibrant scientific facility of the Romanian astronomy. Among the hall’s attractions are the two meridian refractory telescopes: the 1893 one – the first astronomical instrument installed in the actual location of the Astronomical Institute in Bucharest, and it’s much bigger brother, the 1926 Gautier-Prin Great Meridian Circle. 

In the same hall, a Zeiss transit telescope flanked by two vacuum fundamental pendulums – Le Roy and Riefler, tell to the visitors, beyond words, the story of the endless measurements and laborious calculus done for many decades by the Time Service scholars of Romania, which resulted in a ultra-precise scientific time base of the Institute.

In the Lobby of our Planetarium Hall, the educational rover VASILE, together with other designated hardware and software, will give to all visitors, stating with the very young ones, the chance to ask questions about the challenges of sending such robots to our Solar System in order to explore the Moon, planet Mars and other celestial bodies. 

In the Planetarium Hall, at 20.00 p.m., Dr. Ruxandra Toma, a professional astronomer of AIRA, will ask the public through a presentation „What do we know about the Moon?”. The second presentation of the evening will take place at 20.30 p.m. and will be given by Professor Marian Naiman, an enthusiastic astronomy promoter in Romania and a Honorary Member of Bucharest Astroclub. His presentation is called: “The Moon Landings”. The presentations in the Planetarium Hall will be broadcasted online on the FB page of Bucharest Astroclub as well as on Zoom.

Alternatively to the tour guide and the presentations, the Planetarium Lobby will host for the entire duration of the event, a number of educational workshops provided by AIRA & Bucharest Astroclub. 

Photos from the event