Astronomer Perry Vlahos vividly remembers his first high school science class: it was the catalyst of his fascination with the universe and the solar system. He remembers sitting in the classroom watching his teacher draw a semi-circle on the blackboard, then draw dots and link them together. It was his first introduction to understanding what was above him in the sky. The teacher gave these ‘dots’ exotic names and he busily copied the image on the board into his school book with his teacher ending the class stating: “Go out there and find these stars and constellations this evening”. And he did.

It was a warm balmy February night. There were water restrictions in Melbourne when Perry went outside, joined by his father to look up to the sky. There he began recognising the stars that his teacher noted in class. Perry reeled off names to his father of what he was seeing in the sky above: the constellation of Orion, Jupiter, and the group of stars called Taurus.

“I always had an interest in astronomy,” recalls Perry, “but I couldn’t say anything with certainty apart from the sun and moon.
“I thought this is pretty cool that a little kid like me knows more than my father about something,” recalling that night that made him realise the benefit of an education. He was well and truly hooked. The next day, he went straight to the school library and borrowed every book he could find on astronomy and began his career in stargazing.

It was the ’70s. His family had migrated to Australia in the ’60s from Kozani. Like all migrant stories, his parents worked very hard to give their children a better life. They worked hard to buy and pay off their family home, so when Perry asked for a telescope, he knew he too, had to work hard for it. His parents had said that if he got the best marks at school he could have one. That year he was awarded the dux of the school – he got his telescope.
“That was no mean feat for my parents to come up with that sort of money as this was a substantial telescope that was expensive; more than a couple of weeks wages, so they were keen to foster my interest in it.”

He joined the Astronomical Society of Victoria as a junior, but by the time he reached his mid-teens, Perry discovered rock’n’roll and girls. For the next ten years, he dedicated his life to music… until 1986: the return of Halley’s Comet.

Perry rekindled his interest in astronomy “stronger than ever”.

“I spent an awful lot of time under the stars, every opportunity I had,” he tells Neos Kosmos.

He even used his Greek background to excel in courses he was studying in astronomy. He explains that stars are graded by their brightness using the Bayer description – which uses Greek letters – so a really bright star is graded alpha, second brightest is beta and so on. Having knowledge of the Greek language was an absolute blessing for him, allowing him to give his fellow astronomers Greek language lessons on correctly learning the alphabet and pronounce names properly. With so many stars and constellations having Greek names, he says for him it made astronomy even more attractive.

“We should be very proud of the Ancient Greek connection to astronomy. Some of these Greeks were the first people to have leisure time, they were wealthy enough to have time to sit around chatting in the agora, and all they had to do to see the stars and sky was step outside of an evening. They didn’t have to drive outside of Melbourne to see the stars, they were always there above their heads.”

Perry has been the president of the Astronomical Society of Victoria for nearly nine years, but now holds the position of media liaison officer where he says it is his “job to present the public with astrological information in short digestible bites”. To do this, he likes to use metaphors and examples.

“Saying it’s 4.2 light years to the nearest star probably means nothing to anybody, but if you say to them that travelling in one of Mr Enzo Ferrarri’s finest creations at the speed limit of 110 kilometres per hour it will take you 42 million years to get to Proxima Centauri.
“Just getting the vastness of space across, sometimes I feel we have to wait till our brains evolve even more before we can take in some of these concepts which are incredibly difficult for the human brain as they are finite and space is so infinite,” he says.

That’s the thing about the universe – it is so vast. For one to be able to comprehend space is one thing that’s made even harder by the fact that it’s getting even more and more difficult to see what’s in the sky at night.
“I’m not a particularly spiritual person so I think the closest I get to being spiritual or a spiritual experience is at one of these astronomical events because there’s a oneness with the universe,” Perry explains.

“We all want to know where we’ve come from and I think there’s this direct connection with us and the universe because of these reasons.”

And just as his interest was sparked as a child, looking up into the night sky, I can’t help but ask what about the children of today, who can’t just look up and see the night stars as we did kids, are they missing out?

“There is a little bit of truth to what you are saying,” he starts, “there is a danger that the Southern Cross, that’s made up of five stars is going to become just the southern triangle because we will only be able to see the three brightest stars. We’ve sort of lost the fifth star from the city at the moment and the fourth star is borderline and if light and pollution continues unabated it’s likely we will only be able to see three stars.”

As someone who has dedicated most of his life to what lights up the night sky, the fascinating sights he has witnessed are truly phenomenal.

He notes firstly the Leonid meteor shower in 2001 as one of the most amazing things he has ever seen.

“There were meteors appearing in the Eastern sky and I am not exaggerating but literally at the blink of an eye this bright shooting star would shoot from the East to the West and they were coming at the rate of 15 or 20 per minute. And they were bright, they were incredibly impressive and there was nothing we could do to stop them.

“It makes you feel absolutely helpless and in awe of the universe and everything it involves – it was an astonishing thing.”

He says you can’t beat a total eclipse of the sun, and implores everyone to put this sight on their bucket list. So far, Perry has seen three.
“They are just jaw dropping and you physically get to see the solar system in action,” he says excitedly.

“We know everything moves, and the planets go around the sun and the moon goes around the earth, but when you actually see the moon just slowly and gradually moving over the face of the sun and covering it totally and then the Corona – which is the suns outer atmosphere – appears as a pearly white shell, and the moon becomes as dark as a black hole it is just an incredible sight.”

The great comet of 2007, the McNaught Comet, Perry saw by pure accident. On a flight, he could see the comet through the plane’s window and immediately alerted the air hostess who had the captain announce to the passengers to look out their window.
And for future stargazers, Perry says that this year isn’t without some treats. In October / November, we will be able to see Comet ISON. You will need to get away from the lights of the city to see this.

“If the natural enemy of the mouse is the cat and the natural enemy of the cat is the vacuum cleaner then the natural enemy of the astronomer is the electric lamp,” he says as he begins another metaphor, “especially external lighting, advertising billboards.”
But he is quick to point out that astronomers aren’t asking people to have less lighting, just better designed lighting that’s shielded and directed downwards.

That way we can all look to the sky and see the stars – just like we did when we were kids.
“Take every opportunity you have – if you are in the country, if it’s a clear night, have a look up… you will be surprised what you see sometimes.”