Yesterday, we went to Fuertes Observatory to do some stargazing. Although it was quite cloudy during the day, the sky was clearer expected, so we could actually see lots of stars when standing on the balcony area. I thought it was really nice because it is usually really difficult to see stars at night back home due to light pollution. We had some fun trying to guess constellations and perhaps made a few up along the way. After spending some time on the porch (my neck was quite sore from looking up for so long!) we went inside and got to take a look through the main telescope. We were able to see Saturn through the main telescope, which was pretty cool. I expected it to be blurry, but I could actually see the rings of Saturn pretty clearly. One of the astronomy club students explained the mechanisms behind the telescope, which I thought were pretty interesting. Basically, there is a clockdrive that contains two spinning components that are connected to weights, which are gradually lowered over time. This keeps the telescope calibrated with the rotation of the earth, and lets us view the same object for a long period of time. The mechanism is powered by a hand-crank, which as to be re-calibrated every 90 minutes. I was also surprised to learn that the telescope is 102 years old, and that it is still in great working condition. This was a pretty cool experience and a nice break from academics.