(meteorobs) Tom Van Flandern (1940-2009)

[Skywayinc at aol.com]

I received this E-Mail earlier this morning from the  noted occultation 
observer,
David Dunham concerning the untimely death of astronomer  Tom Van Flandern,
who passed away on January 9. 
 
I should also add that Tom also worked closely with  meteorobs own, Esko 
Lytinnen concerning calculations for the series of Leonid  meteor storms that we 
all experienced during the 1999-2002 interval.  He  was very helpful to me in 
my writing of several feature articles on the Leonids  for S&T.  Never had the 
opportunity/pleasure to meet him directly, but  it was plain to see that he 
was a good guy and really loved his  work.
 
-- joe rao
 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Alan Fiala sent me the message from Brenda Corbin  below
informing us of the sad passing of Tom Van Flandern.

On 1970  March 7th, Tom observed a total solar eclipse from
near the northern limit of  totality, while I observed the same
eclipse near the southern limit; this was  the genesis of modern
efforts to observe eclipses this way for solar  radius
measurements. Tom advocated making these observations, and  has
organized the only sizeable public successful "Eclipse  Edge"
expeditions, starting in 1991 July in Mexico (I was with him
there)  and continuing through the 2002 December eclipse in
Australia.

>From  the mid-1960's into the 1970's, Tom and I worked
closely together to  establish the first comprehensive computer
software system for predicting and  analyzing lunar occultations,
especially the then new field of grazing  occultations. In those
days, the work was more difficult than now, done with  punched
cards and mainframe computers, mainly at the U.S.  Naval
Observatory (USNO) where Tom worked at the time. Tom preferred
to do  the analysis while letting me organize the observer
network that became IOTA,  but he and his work were vital to
IOTA's beginnings. He greatly expanded the  small "Evans"
program (named for Carroll Evans in California) to  generate
comprehensive modern-style total lunar occultation  predictions,
which inspired the similar predictions now produced by  WinOccult
and Lunar Occultation Workbench.

Tom also became interested  in asteroidal occultations,
especially after observing the occultation of a  9th-mag. star by
(18) Melpomene photoelectrically at USNO on 1978 Dec. 11  [that
was also my first asteroidal occultation, 30 years to the day
before  Scotty Degenhardt's remarkable 14-station success with
(135) Hertha last  month]. I used Tom's software to analyze
asteroidal occultation observations  until a few years ago, when
that function is now performed with WinOccult.  Tom listened
when, in 1977 and 1978, Paul Maley and others  described
secondary occultations indicating that asteroids probably  had
satellites, many years before those objects were accepted as
real by  most astronomers, and published some pioneering papers
discussing the  dynamics of binary asteroids.

Besides our close astronomical  collaboration, I am also
indebted to Tom personally, he was a great friend  who helped
secure my employment with Computer Sciences Corporation in  1976
in spite of poor recommendations from my previous two "old
school"  bosses who did not appreciate my work. That led to my
collaboration with Dr.  Robert Farquhar ever since that year, on
the design of orbits for numerous  space missions, including the
ISEE-3/ International Cometary Explorer (first  space mission to
a comet in Sept. 1985, along with many other "firsts") and  the
NEAR Shoemaker mission to (433) Eros in 2000 - 2001. Tom  also
introduced me to his employee, Joan Bixby, whom I married  in
1970.

An asteroid will be named for Tom with the next batch  of
Minor Planet Circulars at the next full moon on February  9.

David


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