Letter from a reader

Dear friends of the IAU – WGSN,

I am Paolo Palma, an elementary school teacher and visual astronomer for over 25 years.

With this email I wanted to thank you deeply for the work you do, especially for building a site exclusively dedicated to the names of stars and even more for publishing the etymological description of each of them.

Your work is enviable, poetically beautiful, and at the same time requires so much professionalism and dedication. Therefore, I wanted to thank you for the commitment with which you protect this immense human heritage and thank you because you share with everyone the results you achieve. 

In my outreach activities under the starry skies of Italy I tell the public many stories hidden behind the names of the stars. And people would stay and listen to them for hours, forgetting even the possibility of observing through a telescope. 

I also recently wrote an article on star names for an Italian astronautics and astronomy magazine. So I am overjoyed to be able to read from your competent words and finally be able to direct everyone to the exopla.net site.

Before saying goodbye I am happy to make a small proposal: it would be nice to put together for example also the other names by which the brightest stars in the sky were called by the various traditions of the world, such as Sirius, Arcturus and the like.

Thank you again for your work, I hope always rich in results.

Best regards

Paolo Palma

Published with permission