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A group of Aspen High School students are shooting for the stars, literally.
Members of the school’s Astronomy Club would like to build an observatory at the high school so that telescopes can remain permanently in place for use, rather than having to be taken down, erected and recalibrated every time they are needed. Club members are in the process of raising funds to build the observatory and are selling a homemade telescope during this weekend’s May Madness fundraiser to defray expenses (please see related story, this page). A second “Dobsonian” telescope has already been sold to a local woman. Astronomy Club members constructed the telescopes on their own, at a cost of about $550 each.
“Right now, we have high-powered telescopes that take several hours to set up and need to be calibrated,” said senior Dane Kornasiewicz. “We would like to have a telescope constantly calibrated so we can look at the stars.”
At present, the eight-person Astronomy Club, which meets during lunch periods and before school, has raised about $2,500 for the project, primarily through the telescope sale and a recent star gazing party for the community. Where to put an observatory on school land becomes another question but the club has received a bid and prices on just how much a structure would cost.
Science teacher Travis Moore, who, along with physics teacher Marc Whitley has been working with the club, sees the observatory as a long-range project.
“This is the kids’ vision, to have a place where a couple of telescopes would live. They could use them, close the door and walk away,” he said. That would be a huge time saver in the long run, as walking to an open site, setting up telescopes and calibrating them eats up precious time whenever the club gathers for some star gazing.
The actions of the Astronomy Club members are laudable on a number of fronts. First, before last year, Aspen High School offered only one semester of Astronomy. Some students were so enthused by the first course that four kids joined Moore and Whitley to design an Astronomy II course, as well as a club.
The decision was made to add three main topics: rocketry, celestial navigation and the study of additional constellations. Not surprising, a number of the students are charting a college course that includes aerospace and engineering as majors.
Kornasiewicz noted that the study of astronomy is fun but difficult. “Finding different latitudes based on the stars requires a lot of math,” he said. No surprise then that some of the members will soon be heading off to schools such as Santa Clara, Dartmouth, Stanford and University of Colorado – Boulder.
All except one club member, Cooper Means, will be graduating this month so they won’t get to enjoy the fruits of their labors until way later. That’s OK, said Kornasiewicz.
“In the future people interested in astronomy at Aspen High School” may have an observatory to use, he said.
Instructor Moore offered an explanation as to the difference between an observatory and a planetarium. The latter, which the school has had for years, is a “dark room with a dome ceiling” that can be used during the daytime. An observatory “is a room where you have your telescope that’s out of the weather and has the ability to open up and view objects.”
No doubt that will be an improvement over their current open air observatory that makes its home in a field.
Members of the school’s Astronomy Club would like to build an observatory at the high school so that telescopes can remain permanently in place for use, rather than having to be taken down, erected and recalibrated every time they are needed. Club members are in the process of raising funds to build the observatory and are selling a homemade telescope during this weekend’s May Madness fundraiser to defray expenses (please see related story, this page). A second “Dobsonian” telescope has already been sold to a local woman. Astronomy Club members constructed the telescopes on their own, at a cost of about $550 each.
“Right now, we have high-powered telescopes that take several hours to set up and need to be calibrated,” said senior Dane Kornasiewicz. “We would like to have a telescope constantly calibrated so we can look at the stars.”
At present, the eight-person Astronomy Club, which meets during lunch periods and before school, has raised about $2,500 for the project, primarily through the telescope sale and a recent star gazing party for the community. Where to put an observatory on school land becomes another question but the club has received a bid and prices on just how much a structure would cost.
Science teacher Travis Moore, who, along with physics teacher Marc Whitley has been working with the club, sees the observatory as a long-range project.
“This is the kids’ vision, to have a place where a couple of telescopes would live. They could use them, close the door and walk away,” he said. That would be a huge time saver in the long run, as walking to an open site, setting up telescopes and calibrating them eats up precious time whenever the club gathers for some star gazing.
The actions of the Astronomy Club members are laudable on a number of fronts. First, before last year, Aspen High School offered only one semester of Astronomy. Some students were so enthused by the first course that four kids joined Moore and Whitley to design an Astronomy II course, as well as a club.
The decision was made to add three main topics: rocketry, celestial navigation and the study of additional constellations. Not surprising, a number of the students are charting a college course that includes aerospace and engineering as majors.
Kornasiewicz noted that the study of astronomy is fun but difficult. “Finding different latitudes based on the stars requires a lot of math,” he said. No surprise then that some of the members will soon be heading off to schools such as Santa Clara, Dartmouth, Stanford and University of Colorado – Boulder.
All except one club member, Cooper Means, will be graduating this month so they won’t get to enjoy the fruits of their labors until way later. That’s OK, said Kornasiewicz.
“In the future people interested in astronomy at Aspen High School” may have an observatory to use, he said.
Instructor Moore offered an explanation as to the difference between an observatory and a planetarium. The latter, which the school has had for years, is a “dark room with a dome ceiling” that can be used during the daytime. An observatory “is a room where you have your telescope that’s out of the weather and has the ability to open up and view objects.”
No doubt that will be an improvement over their current open air observatory that makes its home in a field.
