Salvete,
I would like to to translate the following sentence:
A 24 minute sequence from top to bottom, this intriguing series of telescopic frames tracks the occultation of Io by Callisto, two of Jupiter’s Galilean moons, from San Pietro Polesine, Italy, planet Earth.
I would translate it fairly loosely like this:
Haec series imaginum telescopiô intra viginti quattuor (24) minuta in San Pietro Polesini, Italiâ, factarum et ordine temporis servatô a summâ ad infimam seriem depictarum occultationem Ionis Callistone, quae duo ex satellitibus Galilaeis sunt, sequitur.
Another question: is the switch from feminine “quae” (to agree with Io/Callisto) to masculine “duo” (to agree with “satellitibus”) okay?
Anyway, I would like to replace the relative clause “quae duae…sunt” by an apposition, but I do not know which case to choose: Io’s genitive (“duorum satellitum Galilaeorum”) or Callisto’s ablative (“duobus satellitibus Galilaeis”)? Callisto is closer, so one might expect the ablative, but for some reason the genitive “feels” better.
Also, is there a better way to express the phrase “from top to [the] bottom” (of a series of pictures)?
Valete,
Carolus Raeticus
This doesn’t deal with your specific grammatical questions, but I wonder if you are trying to make the sentence too “dense” - i.e. keeping it as one long period, with so many subordinate clauses and appositions. If I were tackling this, I might start by breaking it into four or five completely independent clauses, and then think about how to join some of them, while still preserving a clear flow of information.
Anyway, I recognize that text from the Astronomy Picture of the Day - great site! http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap141126.html
Salve Damoetas,
it does not address the problem at hand, but it definitely touches upon an important problem I again and again encounter in my translations of the APOD-articles (see Textkit’s composition board for more).
Am I packing too much stuff into a single sentence? And how much “unpacking” am I allowed when translating without being too unfaithful to the original and above all without the result feeling cut up too much or even like 1st year Latin?
I certainly will try to break up the long sentences a bit more. As it is, these long sentences get rather unwieldy to read (and understand).
Thank you for your hint,
Carolus Raeticus
PS: yes, the APOD are definitely well worth reading.