by Gamze Menali

I represented the AAVSO at the Amateur Astronomy Symposium held in Istanbul, Turkey, on June 25-26, 2005. Like many other meetings, this one was dedicated to Janet. The meeting was organized by Istanbul Kültür University, partly funded by TUBITAK (The Scientific & Technological Research Council of Turkey).

I was experiencing emotions out of this world as I was boarding an American Eagle flight from Boston to NYC, the first leg of a very long trip! I was going to Istanbul where I am originally from, I was representing the AAVSO (which I consider part of my family), and the symposium was going to be dedicated to our Janet. It was hard to pinpoint which one of these factors was making this meeting the most special: Istanbul, AAVSO, Janet's memory, my Turkish colleagues and professors that I hadn't seen for so long, my family and friends, having two special people with me from the States, David and Wendee Levy. Having Haldun (my dear husband of 11 years and AAVSO member and observer of over 20 years!) with me was a calming factor, though.

I was going to have some extra time to spend with family and friends while in Istanbul. After a long and fairly pleasant trip, our plane finally touched down at Istanbul Ataturk International Airport. After being welcomed to the city by a small clan of close family and friends whose sole mission was to let me know how missed I was (!), we got into what you would call a convoy of cars (!) and headed towards my parents' place, this lovely apartment in the heart of the city, overlooking the wonderful Bosphorus from its balcony where family and friends tend to have their traditional 5 o'clock tea!

Gamze (in back), David Levy, Wendee Levy, and Kadem Şenka at the luncheon with Janet's friends.

David and Wendee Levy, two of the invited speakers, and I had the opportunity to meet Janet's school friends from Izmir (Janet's hometown) for they all came to Istanbul and hosted a luncheon in honor of David and Wendee and in memory of Janet. It was a wonderful experience. I could totally see why they were so important to Janet. At one point, it felt as if Janet were speaking to me through them. It was a moment to remember. Kadem (Janet's sister) was there too. This was my first time meeting her in person even though I've always felt I knew her well through many e-mails and phone conversations. Having Kadem there made things even more special. She also was present for both days of the meeting. You can imagine how appreciative the attendees were for Kadem's presence there. Having Janet's sister that close to me felt like Janet was there with us all throughout the entire meeting. I was also invited to the stage to say a few things as part of the opening remarks and at one point I was so focused on Kadem's face and my memories of Janet that I found myself in an Obi-Wan Kenobi like situation, pointing my laser pointer as if it were my lightsaber, away from my slide I had it up there right into the audiences and also made some intense circles right over my slide, round and round.... I am glad I didn't blind anybody from the audience there!

Gamze chats with Tamer Koçel, President of Istanbul Kültür University

This meeting was going to be the first of its kind, I was told, as far as bringing amateur and professional communities together in such level. I thought, "What better presentation could I have than talking about what we do here at the AAVSO!" since we are the world's largest association of variable star observers in existence. With that in mind, I started working on my presentation. By the time I was done, I was pretty happy about the contents of it and the way I put it together. Although my presentation is in Turkish, I'd be happy to send a copy to whomever might be interested. Since it was about AAVSO and our mission, our observers and members are obviously quite familiar with the facts in it but the concept was totally new to many over there and they really appreciated the opportunity to have learned about who we are, what we do, and how much we contribute to science through our observers and members. I talked a bit about our history, mostly about what we do today, and briefly talked about our future goals. In one particular slide, I didn't forget to emphasize the importance of having observers from an area including Turkey where we lack coverage from. This caught many people's attention and many are interested in learning how to make variable star observations now! Hopefully one day soon we will have someone to call in Turkey for help and support to get complete coverage of an outburst or any other activity of a star of interest. Since they didn't seem to have a solid starting point, one of the attendees, Murat Gezer, kindly volunteered himself to translate our Visual Observing Manual into Turkish. This will give them the guide they need and us the potential coverage we can get from the area. This may sound like a long-term investment but believe me... Some already started reading the English version and even trying to make some observations!

There were around 90 in-person and poster presentations and nearly 300 participants, so the scale of this meeting was quite big. Attendees were from a wide range of backgrounds: professional and amateur astronomers, educators, students, government officials, private university administrators and general public. Young, old, male, female... Participants from all walks of life formed this great mosaic and made the meeting an unforgettable event. The participation of David Levy (AAVSO member and observer) and his lovely wife Wendee Levy attracted much attention from amateurs and professionals alike. Papers were presented mainly in Turkish, while David's, Wendee's, and Dr. Magda Stavinschi's (from Romania) presentations were in English. Paper topics ranged from how to build an observatory (Yenal Öğmen) to an advanced study of the neutron star closest to Earth (Banu Birlik), from a very skillfully constructed presentation, "From Flowers to Photons: From the ground up" (Wendee Levy) to a very exciting one about a new discovery, "The process of discovery of a variable star" co-authoring Tom Glinos, Wendee Wallach-Levy, David Levy, Elizabeth Waagen.

Gamze giving her talk, "AAVSO: The Bridge Between Amateur and Professional Astronomers"

Presentations were organized into sessions, with similar papers (such as observational techniques) covered in the same session, and that made the whole schedule flow in such a pleasant way and also made the topics easier to follow, especially by the general public. As mentioned earlier, this was a very large-scale meeting and caught much attention not only in Istanbul, not only in Turkey, but in parts of Europe as well. Local newspapers and TV stations covered the symposium and published/broadcast about the meeting in the news. The speakers were able to do what's really hard - to pass on information to amateur astronomers, some lacking academic knowledge, as well as to the general public, and I thought we all did very well doing that.

I believe the proceedings of this meeting will have abstracts in English as well. Anyone who might be interested in receiving a copy, please drop me a line at gamze@aavso.org. This booklet will be particularly important because in it, the authors of "The process of discovery of a variable star" are going to publish a note about the discovery of the star for it to get an official designation. Some of the abstracts have been collected and translated here.

At the end of the symposium, a town meeting kind of discussion on the future of amateur astronomy in Turkey took place which turned out to be quite fruitful. This brainstorming session widely interested participants. Haldun and David were very active during these discussions. David came up with some suggestions and also offered to help with anything that would be beneficial throughout the process. Haldun shared his ideas of how he sees the process moving and what should and could be done to better serve the purpose of bringing people together under one roof. I thought that it was a time well-spent and an exchanging of ideas well-thought.

Kadem with Gamze, David and Wendee holding their plaques.

During the registration, each participant received a certificate of participation, which I thought was very nice, and also at the end of the second day, 10 amateur astronomers and astronomy students received a commemorative plaque for their contributions to astronomy, including David, Wendee, Haldun and.... me! It was such an honor to be one of the recipients of this plaque. Once again I was overwhelmed by many emotions - being on the stage with 9 other wonderful people, having a very large-size Janet picture projected in the background, it was as impossible leashing the emotions I was going through as it is putting them into words now. One thing I remember thinking of was the lyrics of the wonderful song Wendee used as part of her beautiful presentation: "I believe there are angels among us."

Finally, the meeting ended with a wonderful boat trip down the Bosphorus. It was spectacular enough to take even a native's (me!) breath away! It was a voyage to remember, a voyage between the two continents (Europe and Asia), a voyage between the past and the future. The only thing that I was missing was my AAVSO family and the wonderful people I've known throughout the years. It was impossible not to miss them and not to want to share the beauty of these moments with them. It is amazing how one's heart can equally divide into two pieces - at the same time feeling great joy in an experience and great sadness in not being able to share it with those in one's heart!

Istanbul Kültür University's handling of this symposium was well fitting to its reputation. The university is well-known for throwing its full support behind science, astronomy in particular. They support astronomy at every level, from an amateur's work with simple binoculars to advanced academic studies. The university executives are second to none when it comes to supporting academicians and I think they deserve big applause for that, especially knowing how hard getting funding for science-related activities is in developing countries. They will continue supporting similar activities, meetings, and symposia in the years to come.

Special thanks to Dr. Arne Henden for supporting my attendance at this meeting, also to Prof. Dr. Tamer Koçel for his leadership, to Dr. Bahar Akıngüç Günver and Lale Akıngüç Sevgen for their support, to Prof. Dr. Dursun Koçer for his immense contributions to the world of science, and to Ayşegül F. Teker for a superb job well-done. Last but not least, my deepest appreciation to Fahamettin Akıngüç, the chairman of the board of trustees of Kültür University, for his leadership and his never-ending support of astronomy/science. If it weren't for their involvement and support, I don't think I would have had these wonderful memories to share with you.