Reaching Out to the Stars With the AAVSO

As part of my job at the AAVSO, I respond to several questions and requests that come to Headquarters either by surface mail or over the web. The questions differ from a simple "What is a black hole?" to something like "I saw a star towards the horizon last night. Would you please tell me what it is?" (without any other information!). Most of the requests are about getting some help on a current science project that a student may be working on.

One morning, I was getting ready to read one such message that was submitted via our web page, when I realized that it was sent from the other side of the Atlantic, from far away Ankara, Turkey! It was written in very good English by a student named E. Efe Dengiz from a well-known high school for Turkish Students in Ankara. He was requesting information on the famous eclipsing binary Algol. I sent an initial package of information and directed him to our website where Algol was one of the featured stars of the month. I ended my message to him with a Turkish salutation meaning "Regards".

He replied the next day with a message saying how pleased and excited he was to receive my reply and to see the Turkish greeting at the end of my message.

After this unexpected and pleasant beginning, we started sending messages back and forth when he explained he was doing a research project for a high school science competition organized by the Turkish Scientific and Technical Research Council (TUBITAK). The more questions I answered about his project the more were waiting for me the next day. I had extra help when I needed it thanks to Dr. Mercedes T. Richard (an authority on Algol at the University of Virginia) following Director Janet Mattei's suggestion.

Efe entered his project on Algol to the science competition. His was one of the 130 projects in the competition. He won second prize. This was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to him, at least that's what he wrote later. He said that he has always wanted to become a medical doctor, it was his dream, until he worked on Algol and received the science prize. Now he swears that he is going to do whatever it takes to become an astronomer, a professional one if he can or else a serious amateur. In any case, Efe seems to have dedicated himself to astronomy, at least through his project on Algol the help he got from the AAVSO. I am very happy to have helped him in this small way with his future dreams and decisions.

Table of contents

Next article