(meteorobs) Tom Van Flandern (1940-2009)

[Esko Lyytinen]

I an very sorry to hear this.

I had my last email-exchange with Tom in August 2008 concerning the 2008 
Leonids and before Joe's message I did not know of any problems with his 
heathy or anything.

Tom was very helpful and encouraging to me. At the early stages of my 
"more serious" astronomical or celestial mechanics trials, I actually 
got the only support (besides here home) and encouragement from Tom.

And it was Tom who actually encouraged me to start the Leonids modeling 
(after we had some other common topics that both of as were interested), 
even though I had previous interest and some thinking on the subject. 
The modeling was based on his "satellite model of comets" and regardless 
to what degree this model may be true or not, this was a very good 
starting assumption. It made to me necessary the more detailed study of 
nongravitational effects to meteoroids. And I think that this branch is 
needed to take into account in good trail-modeling.

Esko

> From: Skywayinc at aol.com
> Subject: (meteorobs) Tom Van Flandern (1940-2009)
>
>  
> 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
>  
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ------
>  
> 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
>
>
>  
>
>
>