Sometimes it's good to be in dark

Public invited to view heavenly wonders once a month at C of C observatory

Alan Hawes
The Post and Courier

College of Charleston physics and astronomy professor James Neff takes a look through the school's 16-inch telescope in its rooftop observatory, which will be open to the public the first Friday of every month.

Public invited to view heavenly wonders once a month at C of C observatory

With computer precision, the physics professors can tell you what you see through their telescope.

And with near omniscient powers of recall, they can tell you the questions they'll hear on visitors' night at the observatory:

"How far can you see with this telescope?"

"Have you ever seen a UFO?"

"Can I see Saturn with this thing? How about Uranus?"

At the College of Charleston, the only university in the state with an accredited astro-physics (or astronomy, for lay people) degree program, the questions never get old.

But this new, extended daylight- saving time already has.

"We are anxious for it to get dark," says James Neff, a professor in the Physics and Astronomy Department.

"If we had our way, we'd probably turn the clocks the other way," says Terry Richardson, senior instructor. "Daylight-saving time is anathema to an astronomer."

If you saw what they can see in the night sky, Orion, Neptune and the finer details of the moon, you'd know why they feel that way.

And, as it turns out, you can.

On the first Friday of every month of the academic year, the College of Charleston Physics and Astronomy Department opens its observatory atop the Rita Liddy Hollings Science Center to anyone who wants to take a peek around Earth's neighborhood.

Take a gander at the Great Nebula in Orion and get a closer look at the other digs in this solar system. Right now, Jupiter is in the sky, and come November or December, Mars will be swinging by for a closer look. With the observatory's 16-inch reflecting telescope, Richardson has caught glimpses of the planet's polar caps and even a dust storm.

Neff has set up a system where he punches in the name of what you want to see, and the telescope points to it. Point and click on an interstellar scale.

As interesting as the stars are, the physics and astronomy program is just as interesting. With cooperative agreements for telescopes in the Virgin Islands and Arizona, the faculty has amazing resources for monitoring space.

Students in the program — and they are graduating about 10 physics majors a year, half with an astronomy concentration — get to help with research grants from NASA and the National Science Foundation.

The astronomy labs draw hundreds of students each semester who want to fulfill a science credit and get access to one of 50 other telescopes the department has in its arsenal. The course is so popular, it pulls some people into the major.

"I took an astronomy course, and from the first look, I was hooked," says Robert Laquiere, now a physics major.

The people who come in for open houses often have the same reaction, whether they're Cub Scout troops or retirees. Their level of knowledge is just about as varied, from the UFO comments all the way to tracking stars across the sky.

"Astronomy is about the only science that has an avid amateur community," Neff says.

And, when the night sky is clear, affording you a perfect view of Saturn's rings — which, yes, you can see — it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why that is.

Reach Brian Hicks at 937-5561 or bhicks@postandcourier.com