The observatory, which turned 10 in May, is situated in the village of Ulupınar, which is at an altitude of 400 meters above sea level. The observatory started with a donated telescope with an objective lens diameter of 40 centimeters and has since made great progress in its studies, increased the number of telescopes to seven and the number of employers to 30. It has also begun to have a greater voice in the international arena.
The observatory, which has become the best in Turkey in terms of publications, launched a project for a larger telescope to observe the less bright heavenly bodies up in the sky and to observe the deeper points of the universe. After obtaining the telescope with an objective lens diameter of 122 centimeters, which was made in Germany in 2009, the observatory subsequently overtook other observatories in the country to become the best in Turkey in the field of astrophysics.
‘We’ve been observing space for 10 years but have yet to see any UFOs’
Mentioning that studies about space are important as the world itself is a part of space, ÇOMÜ Rector Sedat Laçiner stated that observing the stars and other planets might contribute to earthquake studies. “All in all, you can’t predict what you will discover. The world of science is full of such uncertainties. The more experiments that are conducted, the more data we can collect. And through these data and experiments, someone might be able to come up with something that could positively affect our lives. The Ulupınar Observatory is a very successful observatory of Turkey. Generally, research centers don’t work very efficiently in Turkey but our center carried out many successful studies on both a national and an international scale. This center brought many scientific studies to the international arena. Our observatory has made serious contributions to space studies. We have observed a growing interest in space studies in other universities; faculties of astronautics are being set up. These developments please us as we started studies in this field well in advance. The fact that our center presents some highly needed theoretical information and observatory data will facilitate space studies in other universities,” said Laçiner.
Demircan, who has been managing the observatory since the day it was set up, says people are most curious about UFOs. Demircan says every week two or three people visit him, claiming that they shot video footage of UFOs. “After examining these videos, we find that they are either street lamps lights or the movements of some other lights.” Demircan added that “UFO stands for ‘unidentified flying object’ and if you have the knowledge, you will be able to recognize an unknown flying object. The public associates UFOs with spacecraft or alien spaceships. This isn’t right, such things don’t exist. There haven’t been any nor will there by any recordings of such things. We record what’s going on up there in the sky every day via six telescopes.”
Stating that they have achieved many important things since the observatory was set up, Demircan says they have discovered seven stars, which have since been named after the observatory.
