Seeing stars: Public observatory night

Weather permitting, Monmouth College will offer the public an opportunity to look 2.5 million light years into space on Nov. 2.

The College will host an open observatory night from 7-9 p.m. at the Center for the Science and Business.

“We’ll have telescopes at the front of the building – the Broadway side – and activities inside on the second floor, and we’ll be taking folks up to the rooftop observatory,” said physics professor Mike Solontoi.

“We plan on observing the Moon, Jupiter and Saturn,” said Solontoi. “We may also take a look at the Ring Nebula, the Andromeda Galaxy and/or a nice star cluster if the night has nice clear air.”

Solontoi said that the Trubeck Telescope allows Monmouth students to see much farther into space than was previously possible.

“We routinely look at the Whirlpool Galaxy, about 23 million light years away from Earth, and we can still see structure in it through just an eye-piece,” he said. “With a dark enough night, or using a camera, we can easily see objects that are tens to hundreds of times further away.”

Barry McNamara - Communications & Marketing