As #17 on the list of “161 Things Every Cornellian Should Do,” Fuertes Observatory was a location that I always wanted to visit, but never had the chance to do so until this Rose Scholars event.

Located in the center of the room was the hundred year-old telescope. From the guide, I learned that this telescope was run through a clock drive mechanism, which allows it to rotate with the rotation of the earth and keep the object currently being viewed in sight. Tonight, we were looking at Saturn.  

As I waited in line to look through the telescope, I realized that this was a novel experience for me. I had previously been to various observatories, namely, Griffiths Observatory and Chabot Space and Science Center, however, both of these times I had just toured and viewed  other exhibits. While visiting Griffiths last winter, there were telescopes which offered tourists the opportunity to look at Neptune, Mars, the Moon, and Andromeda, however, I arrived just when these celestial bodies were starting to phase out of view of the telescopes. So instead, I toured the rest of the museum, reading about space missions, the history of astronomy and important historical figures, and facts about the planets, galaxies, stars. 

As I climbed the ladder and looked through the telescope, I was amazed! Saturn looked just like what I had seen in textbooks: a pale yellow sphere, with rings around it (albeit not in as high resolution as in textbooks); two of its moons were also visible as dots of lights around it! 

It was a surreal experience: being able to see with my own eyes a planet, millions of miles away, really puts into perspective how vast our universe is and gives me a greater appreciation for earlier astronomers, who, using telescopes less refined than the ones we have today, were able to make discoveries about the universe that we are situated in.

Next Fall, Mars will be in view, and I know that I will be among one of the first in line to see it.