Sky & Telescope - June 2022 - 6

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TUNÇ TEZEL
FROM OUR READERS
e r
A u g u s t
J u l y
Southwest
West
Evening Venus Tour
As soon as I opened to David Grinspoon's
article " Many Happy Returns "
(S&T: Jan. 2022, p. 12), the familiarity
of it struck me. Following the motion of
Venus' position in the evening sky is one
observing project I have always enjoyed,
nearly as eagerly as Mars retrogrades. I
call them " Evening Venus Tours. "
My first acquaintance with an Evening
Venus Tour was back in 1992, when
Venus shone in the evening sky from late
summer 1992 until the end of March
1993. The motion had a wide range of
azimuth and altitude in the western sky,
which I then tried to plot on paper using
desktop planetarium software. That
shape had looked familiar, too, because I
remembered seeing it in an older magazine,
which plotted the Evening Venus
Tour of 1984-85. This 8-year repetition
must be a thing, I thought at the time. I
continued to plot the next few years on
paper. It was nice to see how different
the shapes could be.
Back in 2000, I decided to photograph
the repeat of my first attempt at
this from 1992-93. I frequently visited
p This Evening Venus Tour tracks the bright
planet from July 2005 to January 2006. Venus
followed the same path in 1997 and 2021.
the terrace of the physics department
at Middle East Technical University in
Ankara, Turkey, to position my camera
with a fisheye lens from September 2000
until March 2001 to photograph Venus
when the Sun was 7° under the horizon.
The weather in autumn and especially
winter was tricky to get around. But I
was really pleased with the result. It was
a much better-looking version of my first
plot from 8 years earlier.
My second such Evening Venus Tour
project was between May 2005 and January
2006, which I photographed from
the rooftop of our apartment building
in Bursa, Turkey. The result was the
same as the one depicted in Grinspoon's
article (and my 1997-98 plot). I have
also photographed the remaining three
types of Evening Venus Tours.
Venus also repeats different shapes in
the morning sky. Of course, observing or
photographing them requires one to be
an early riser or a morning person.
Tunç Tezel * Bursa, Turkey
in the Planetary Studies Foundation's
Doug Firebaugh Observatory in Freeport,
Illinois. It's our largest telescope
and provides beautiful images for visitors
to the observatory. Planetary Studies
Foundation Executive Board member
Herbert Windolf, who was a friend of
Paul Comba, purchased the telescope
in 2010 and donated it to the Planetary
Studies Foundation. We've named it the
" Comba-Windolf Telescope. " Explaining
the history of this telescope has been
part of our introductory presentations
on public observing nights since 2010.
When I read this article, it brought a
big smile to my face just thinking about
how this telescope continues to provide
learning and enjoyment.
Jim Dole
Co-director, Doug Firebaugh Observatory
Freeport, Illinois
The Ambassador
Grandparent
The schism between bright young
minds interested in astronomy and club
membership and outreach, as described
by Max Corneau in " Fanning Sparks "
(S&T: Sept. 2021, p. 84) and as discussed
in the letters it inspired (S&T:
Feb. 2022, p. 7), is not only an American
phenomenon. As an expat living
and conducting business in Mexico for
50 years, I believe the problem is worldwide,
or at least just as relevant in Latin
America as it is in the United States.
Since 2018, I have been an active
The Comba-Windolf
Telescope
I'm a longtime subscriber to Sky & Telescope
and pretty much read every issue
cover to cover. I enjoy Roger Sinnott's
75, 50 & 25 Years Ago and always try
to see if I can remember any of the
showcased articles. While reading this
department in the January 2022 issue,
6
JUNE 2022 * SKY & TELESCOPE
the quote from the January 1997 issue,
" CCD Charm, " brought back many
memories of my Cookbook CCD camera
and the CCD revolution.
What really caught my attention,
though, was the part about Paul Comba,
his 18-inch (46-cm) reflector, and the
asteroids he discovered with it. That
18-inch JMI NGT-18 is currently at home
member of Clavius, an astronomy club
in Mexico City with an outstanding
weekly program. One of my personal
motives is to prepare myself to do
effective outreach on STEAM-related
subjects and activities with my four
children and 13 grandchildren. Science
is a marvelous channel of communication,
which easily overcomes the
enormous differences in worldview
that separates three generations.
I organize star parties, Moon
watches, and solar shadow sequence
analyses for them and their friends
to enjoy, and we also watch and
discuss documentaries together. I do
astrophotography, spectroscopy, and
photometry on my own and show my
u na J
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Sky & Telescope - June 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Sky & Telescope - June 2022
