Day 156 - Look at the Stars through a Dome Telescope

Date: June 11th, 2010

I think I may have mentioned that I like looking at stars.  And by may have, I mean that I have.  And by mentioned, I mean mentioned repeatedly.  I have always thought it would be cool to look through a telescope inside an observatory.  That's why, as soon as I was able to, I registered for the Astronomy Lab section (instead of the boring, old, during the daytime, Astronomy Discussion section).  Once a week, my section would gather in Angell Hall to compare notes, work on computers and, weather permitting, look at stars up on the roof.  What's the catch?  Weather permitting.


For the entire semester, every single time we had lab, it either rained or was cloudy.  The whole time.  Every session.  All semester.  I know that's getting repetitious, but I want to impart on you the level of frustration I felt by the time the class had ended.  Every.  Single. Session.  It was like, no matter how many times I tried, I couldn't get myself an opportunity to see the stars.

Oh Charlie Brown, surely you can relate.

Other than the obvious, wholly inappropriate obsession that I have with stargazing, it may be confusing as to why I cared so so much about seeing the stars during this particular class.  I mean, my goodness, its not like they stopped existing the other six days of the week.  Actually yes.  Yes it is.  See, Ann Arbor has a lot of light pollution, not that I'm complaining.  Just saying, the same thing that gets me a Pizza House milkshake at 3am, hilarious run-ins with young men who really should stop smoking pot at Pancheros and, of course, the immeasurable joy of the Fleetwood at 5am; is what keeps me from just looking straight up and seeing those twinkling balls of joy.

Once the class ended, I thought I'd missed my chance to head up to the roof of Angell Hall and look through their observatory telescope.  Well, I thought wrong.  A couple weeks back, as I perused my usual Ann Arbor online calendar collection (there are three sites worth checking out, in case anyone's interested), I fell upon a listing for Angell Hall Observatory Open House.  Open, you say?  House, you say?  Turns out, the astronomy club at UofM hosts these open houses every couple of weeks so that Ann Arbor residents can check out the glory of the night sky.  Without, you know, traveling to the UP and camping by the beach on the south side of Lake Superior.  Not that I know anyone who's done that.

I stopped in there with Justin at about 11pm (the hours run from 10pm to midnight) to see what we could see.  They had two telescopes - one in the observatory dome and the other free standing out on the roof.  In addition to the surreal coolness of being on the roof of the building where I took most of my undergrad classes, I also got to fulfill that lifelong desire to look through ever larger telescopes.  The observatory dome was pointed at Saturn and the other telescope was looking at Mars.  What's amazing and different about the observatory telescope, mostly, was the level of detail.  The rings are so pronounced through that lens.

Probably the best part, though, wasn't getting to do it, but seeing all the kids there with their parents.  I remember my parents fostering my love of the stars when I was a kid.  Even though I hadn't gotten to look through a dome telescope before, I'd done many other astronomical things growing up.  It was so lovely to see parents taking their kids out and giving them the chance to see the sky through those telescopes.  It warmed my cold, law student heart.