USU observatory opens for public night

Crowds lined the rooftop of Utah State University’s Science and Engineering Research building Friday night to look at stars, planets and nebulas through the lenses of several telescopes during the first public open house of the semester.

James Coburn, the teaching laboratory supervisor for the department of physics who runs the observatory, said the monthly public nights take place because they are in demand.

“We get calls all the time, you know, ‘Can we go to the observatory,’ and we say ‘We’re gonna have a public night,'” Coburn said. “And then that gives them a chance to come.”

Bryant Ward, a sophomore physics major and teaching assistant who works with students at the observatory, said the open house is a good way to reach other people and educate them.

“It’s fun for the public, for one thing, and it’s just a good outreach,” Ward said. “It’s good for educating people for the science and getting people aware of what’s going on.”

Coburn said astronomy has been an important subject to study since ancient times when people used stars as their primary means of navigation. Presently, that is not so much the case, but it is still important because there is more out there than Earth.

“The Earth, when you look at it, is a pretty small place compared to everything else out there,” Coburn said. “And if we’re gonna say, ‘All right, we’re just gonna look at our little planet,’ then we’re gonna be centered on ourselves.”

Coburn said understanding astronomy helps understand the place of humanity in the universe. He said there could be as many as one hundred billion stars within Earth’s galaxy is in and one hundred billion galaxies in the universe.

“So that’s a hundred billion stars,” Coburn said.

Ward said the study of astronomy is important because it explains the origins of humans.

“There’s kind of a joke in physics,” Ward said. “People say, ‘What is physics?’ and you say, ‘It’s the science of everything,’ and astronomy is similar to that. Everything is basically astronomy. We were created from astronomy. Astronomy is us. Astronomy is everything that’s out there.”

Lura Craner, a USU alumna who brought her young children to the event, said this was the first time she had been to the observatory and her experience was awesome.

“The kids have never seen such big telescopes,” Craner said. “It’s pretty awesome to see stars that are so far away.”

Coburn said the observatory was built in 2009 as a laboratory for students to use for their class. There are currently two classes that use it, which comprise a total of about 800 students.

“Goal number one for the observatory was for students to be able to use it,” Coburn said. “We also have some student projects, like senior projects and upper-division physics projects and then third goal is to get the community a chance to look through a state-of-the-art telescope.”

Ward said Logan is a great place to study astronomy because it is not very big and it does not have a lot of light pollution.

According to the observatory website the next public night is October 24.

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