Have you ever looked at the night sky and let your mind drift through the stars? As you stared at the countless specks of light, did you wonder how many there were? Did you think about the planets that might be circling them and whether or not some of them might harbor life?
The vastness of space is overwhelming. Not only can we not comprehend how many stars and planets there are in the universe, we can’t grasp how far away these celestial bodies are. The star nearest to our sun, Alpha Centauri B, is 4.4 light years from Earth, and that’s just a cosmic stone’s throw away! Yet the sky is filled with more stars than we can count, and those are just a few of the hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy, which is just one of hundreds of billions of galaxies in the universe.
Right now, a telescope orbiting our planet is focused on a relatively tiny patch of space farther away than man has ever looked. And astronomers are seeing dozens of galaxies! As we rush through our daily routines, oblivious to anything that happens outside of our microscopic sphere of influence, it might seem like Earth is all there is, but that’s far from the truth.
Even so, all known life in the universe is contained within a thin atmospheric strip wrapped around a tiny blue dot. How fortunate we are to have this terrestrial home!
Chattanooga is also fortunate to have one of the few amateur observatories in the country: the Clarence T. Jones Observatory, owned by the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Located 4.5 miles east of the university at 10 Tuxedo Avenue, UTC Jones Observatory is one of Chattanooga’s premiere free attractions.
You read that right: free. During the school year, the observatory is open to the public most Sunday nights. And visiting it can be educational and enlightening.
Locating the observatory the first time can be tricky, so take my advice: Park in the lot behind Brainerd United Methodist Church, walk up the trail that goes by the cemetery and use the back entrance.
You’ll find yourself in a brick building constructed in 1936. Contained within its walls are a small room for lectures, a planetarium with a star projector and a 20.5 inch Cassegrain telescope installed in 1938.
You might initially scoff at the idea of looking through a 74-year-old telescope. Well, my dad is that old, and he can see just fine! Depending on what’s within the telescope’s field of view, you might find yourself gazing at the rings of Saturn, the stormy atmosphere of Jupiter, craters on the moon or even the Orion Nebula.
The night I visited the observatory, the volunteer crew that runs the observatory was only able to focus on a distant star. It was still a pinpoint of light, just a bigger pinpoint of light than the naked eye can see. The lesson here is to call or email ahead to find out what the telescope will be viewing. Jack Pitkin of UTC’s Physics, Geology and Astronomy Department will gladly respond to your query. His phone number is 423-425-4518; his email is jack-pitkin@utc.edu.
Sunday evenings are something of an event at the observatory. In addition to viewing the cosmos firsthand, you can take in a presentation in the planetarium. Before lowering the lights and bringing up the stars, Pitkin cast a brief PowerPoint presentation about mankind’s visits to Mars on the curved ceiling. As I looked at a photograph Curiosity recently snapped of small rounded rocks, Pitkin piqued my interest by suggesting such shapes are made possible only by water erosion.
While the planetarium is small, the effect of watching the lights dim and the stars appear is similar to the real thing. Pitkin turned on some ethereal music to set the mood and then slowly dimmed the lights. At first, I could see only a few faint dots, but as the ceiling darkened, it slowly filled with heavenly bodies. Pitkin spent several minutes pointing out different stars and constellations and explaining how to find them.
Finally, another volunteer set up in the lecture room and gave a talk on the different kinds of telescopes. If you’ve ever wondered how telescopes work, then you’ll find this portion of the evening to be interesting. The volunteer also answered questions from the audience, which would be a good opportunity for budding amateur astronomers to get the scoop on the best equipment to buy and how much it might cost.
I enjoyed my visit to UTC Jones Observatory. Even viewing the star, whose light traveled across space for untold light years to touch my eye, sparked my imagination. There was a time when man couldn’t conceive of walking on the moon or landing a machine on Mars. Might we someday be able to visit distant stars and explore the planets that circle them?
It’s something to think about as you look at the night sky.
Email David Laprad at dlaprad@hamiltoncountyherald.com