The Yale Astronomical and Space Student Society organized a stargazing event for students and New Haven residents last Saturday.
Emilie Ma
11:03 pm, Oct 08, 2024
Contributing Reporter
Emilie Ma, Contributing Photographer
Last Saturday at 8 p.m., the Yale Astronomical and Space Student Society, or YASSS, hosted stargazing on Beinecke Plaza. Over 75 curious passersby and club members looked at a tiny image of Saturn, complete with its rings, through two computerized telescopes.
The planet, visible to the naked eye as a bright speck, is especially apparent during this time of the month because of its high altitude in the sky early in the evening.
“Seeing Saturn for the first time was really interesting because you usually don’t get to see planets so easily,” Yale Public Safety Officer Darryl Gaetano told the News. “It’s very nice to get the experience.”
For many like Gaetano, it was their first time stargazing.
Many viewers mentioned various barriers to astronomical observation at their homes — light pollution or lack of equipment — that had kept them from stargazing until now.
“In the rural area of the Philippines where I come from, there aren’t many opportunities for stargazing at my school,” Matt Sareno ’28 added.
Some viewers were surprised at how different Saturn’s image they saw was from familiar textbook depictions. Vaishnavi Gade GRD ’24 likened it to a “little glow-in-the-dark sticker.”
Initially, there were some issues with training one of the two telescopes on Saturn. The event organizers were required to manually find the planet. However, once Saturn was found, a small crowd quickly formed.
Lucas Zimmerman ’27, the club treasurer, said after he found Saturn through trial and error he had about 30 people line up almost immediately.
“It’s always my favorite moment when people see planets for the first time because they don’t expect it,” he said. “You can see Saturn very easily through the telescope, and you can see it in the sky, so there’s a connection that happens there.”
Julia Levy ’25, the founder and president of YASSS and a staff reporter at the News, said that the organization is committed to making stargazing accessible to all.
She explained the society grew from an earlier iteration, the Yale Astronomy Society, to expand outreach to the greater Yale and New Haven communities in 2023.
“It’s a culmination of four years of work,” Levy said. “We finally brought stargazing with professional observational equipment for the public to enjoy as we do at the Leitner Observatory.”
Levy told the News that the two telescopes used at the event were owned by her and another board member.
She hopes to find funding for the society to buy its own telescopes and continue making sessions like Saturday’s stargazing event accessible for all.
“It’s especially cool to see the club be born from essentially out of nothing,” Elijah Bakaleynik ’25, who had previously worked for an astrophysics program at Yale, said. “Two years ago, there was no undergraduate organization around astronomy, and now there is.”
Prior to the stargazing events held through YASSS, the sole place at Yale for stargazing was the Leitner Family Observatory and Planetarium, available for the public only on clear Tuesday nights. Distance to the observatory is a common detractor for students, so YASSS sought to bring public stargazing closer to campus.
As the night drew to a close and there were fewer passersby, the organizers carefully packed the telescopes up in protective cases.
“I think Yale doesn’t have enough nerds, and it’s great that there are students who can set something up on a Saturday evening during the midterm season for everyone to enjoy,” Bakaleynik noted while reflecting on the event.
Beinecke Plaza is located at 165 Grove St.