Astronomy Students Sacrifice Sleep, Set Schedule for Class Time

By PETER ROBINSON

While Advanced Studies Programs students switch off the lights for bedtime at 11:30 pm, the Astronomy students begin their workday.

Most clear nights the astronomy students from North and Wing hike up to the Hawley Observatory located behind Coit where they spend roughly four hours observing stars, constellations, planets, and even galaxies.  Typically when students observe at night, they begin in the Chart house, where they discuss the topics and goals for the night, before they pair up in groups to work in the big domes. Although the class mostly stays out until 2:30AM, depending on the night they can work at the observatory until 11:30PM or 4:00AM. When the students go back to their dorms at night, on normal nights they get to sleep for roughly six to seven hours before having to get up for class.

The astronomy students don’t mind this odd schedule that takes up most of their night; Dalton Colen, an astronomy student in the class said he likes it because “it makes you able to find constellations which are excellent romanticizing tools.”

At the observatoty the astronomy students primarily work with large domed telescopes equipped with CCD cameras controlled electronically within a dome; however there is also the Alumni Telescope, a 0.7-meter altitude-azimuth mounted reflecting telescope that was built and brought to SPS in 2004. The four domes are known as: Dome 2, Dome 3, Lowell Dome and Dome 5. Dome 3 is currently not functioning so the remaining three are used by the class of 13 split into two groups of four, and one group of five.

The class has had a few guest speakers and the speakers have helped the class in their learning about topics such as the celestial sphere and constellations, optics and spectroscopy, and most recently stars and a stellar revolution.

“My favorite lecture was when we had R.P. Hale as a guest speaker and he talked about the Mayan and Aztec calendars,” said astronomy student Morgan Matthews.

So while you may see papers on Coit’s doors saying, “the astronomy students were out late last night, please be quiet” and you may be angry at the fact that they get to sleep in, and play Top Gun and Super Mario during study hours, in actuality, they spend a lot more time learning and interacting outside of the four-walled classroom.