Students interested in learning about astronomy followed in Ennius’s footsteps and gathered to look at stars and planets after school on Nov. 24.

Physics teacher Bryan Cooley hung fliers and invited all students interested in a closer look at the skies to use a telescope to look into the clear night sky and watch a Hubble Space slide show.

The gathering provided an introduction to the basics of astronomy to whoever was interested, according to Cooley. Around 25 students showed up at 5:30 p.m. and left at 7:30 p.m. after observing some stars and planets and talking about astronomy. Each student was given a Star Wheel to help them find constellations of stars and track changes in the sky during various seasons, according to Cooley, who also provided hot chocolate and cider. “The hot chocolate after that was warming,” junior Taiyo Onoda said.

Cooley gave a brief lecture before the students went stargazing. He also used a free, downloadable Stellarium computer program, which shows what the sky looks like on any given day at any given time. This enabled the students to identify the North Star and some constellations before they went outside to look for the real thing, according to Cooley.

Afterward, everyone went outside to the soccer field with two large telescopes — one with 50x magnification and the other with 130x. Using these telescopes, students were able to clearly see the moon, several stars and the rare sighting of Jupiter’s rings.

“Especially beautiful were Jupiter’s rings. They looked perfectly smooth and elegant surrounding Jupiter,” junior Patrick Ong said. “Although I had seen plenty of pictures of Jupiter online and in books, this was unreal. It was a rare opportunity and I am glad I was able to experience it.”

Other students found the technical aspects of stargazing more exciting. “I liked that I was able to learn how to use the telescope,” Onoda said.

In addition to observing the stars, students were able to point at them using powerful lazars that operate by reflecting off of dust particles in the air. “It made it easier to locate the stars,” junior Lydia Hu said. “It also made it feel like the sky was close enough to touch.”

Cooley was encouraged to hold the stargazing workshop by a summer workshop he took at NASA in Washington D.C. Cooley said that if there is interest, he will do this again next semester.