Monday, Oct. 24 was an unusually clear night in Tacoma. From the top of the tower in Thompson hall, all that was visible was the orange glow of sodium streetlights, the ever-present cloud of steam rising above the port and the stars.
The stars were exactly what brought me up there. I had tagged along with a group of students and Physics professor Tsunefumi Tanaka to take advantage of the uncommonly cloud-free sky and see what lies beyond our atmosphere through the lens of our university’s telescope.
Our observatory is a small dome that fits a maximum of about seven people, along with the telescope, a computer and small desk.
“This could be called an amateur setup”, Tanaka said as he programmed a star name into a hand-held keypad. The telescope automatically swiveled and domed roof rotated to find that object in the night sky. Everyone in the room gasped.
For people who do not study astronomy, our observatory is quite impressive. The tracking device that Tanaka used can find about 1,000 different objects in the night sky ranging in size from galaxies to asteroids.
It was first built in 1993 with matching funds from the National Science Foundation and the Murdoch Charitable Trust. The entire set-up cost $40,000. Amazingly, each piece of equipment was brought up to the tower through the stairs—from the telescope’s lens to the orange-slice shaped metal pieces that form the dome. The wooden floor was built by Professor Alan Thorndike. After the remodeling in 2007, a stabilizing wall was put in the stairwell.
“Now, the only way to get it down is to throw it off the side,” professor Bernie Bates, who specializes in astronomy and teaches Ancient Astronomy and Mars Exploration, joked.
That night I saw the brown and yellow bands of gas on Jupiter and three of its moons. We saw a nebula where stars are born. I saw the bright light of Vega, a star about 25 lightyears from Earth. I saw twin stars that orbit each other every few hundred years that to the naked eye look like one light and a circular fuzz called a globular cluster. Throughout all of this Tanaka patiently answered every one of our questions and took us out for an impromptu lesson about finding constellations.
When we finally descended down the many stairs to return to our homework the excitement was palpable. “Why can’t we come up here more often?” one student asked.
“One of the most common misconceptions about the telescope is that students think it’s just for students to do research,” Bates said. “That just isn’t true. We let anyone use the telescope as long as they can show us they won’t break it, and the equipment up there is pretty hard to break.”
Even students who do not know how to use it can go up to the observatory with a professor. Tanaka usually stays late on nights that are clear and brings up groups of curious students. The main constraint is space because the observatory quickly gets cramped. However, there are plans to make the telescope more accessible to more students.
Eric Laukkanen, the president of the Physics club, plans to create a Star-Gazers Club.
“I’ll send an e-mail out on clear nights when someone is around and then people can stop by and go up to the observatory,” Laukkanen said. He invites students to e-mail him if they are interested.
Also, Bates has plans to give students more Earth-bound options to see the stars. The first telescope they used had mechanical problems and so has been retired to a physics classroom where it is unused.
“It still works though, you just have to move it manually,” Bates said. “I saw how students like being able to see the stars in Oppenheimer at night, and it occurred to me, why not put that old telescope out in the courtyard so students can look at it?”
One question remains about the observatory—what to call it? Bates fears that one day it will be bestowed with the name of a random benefactor. So, he has decided to open up a name contest. Anyone who is taking a physics class can propose a name and the winner will be announced at the end of year.
The observatory remains largely undiscovered, but the Physics department hopes that more students start to make use of it. So, on the next clear night, stop by the Physics department and go see the stars. Even for those who don’t know the difference between a globular cluster and a nebula—or even how to find a planet—it’s breathtaking.
