Nebulas, moons and the eight planets are just a few of the things the Galaxy Gazers, a star gazing group of FAU students from Jupiter, will see during their “star party” on Oct. 21.
“I have fun. It’s an enjoyable hobby and very relaxing,” says Rob Linder, a biochemistry major at the Honors College in Jupiter.
This Jupiter-based club meets about every other weekend to have star parties, which is what they have titled their night time excursions. They leave Jupiter between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. and drive to an area in Hobe Sound that has very little light pollution. There they spend a few hours under the stars with their telescope.
The latest the club has stayed out on an excursion was until 4 a.m., “…and that was because of a lunar eclipse,” says Linda Segovia, the president of the Galaxy Gazers and a math major at the Honor’s College.
Segovia and her officers, “who are also her friends,” started the club in the spring of 2004. Segovia explains that they all loved astronomy, and thus were eager to create the club. “I want to be an astronaut,” Segovia states proudly.
Anyone who is interested in viewing the night sky through an 8-inch, Dobsonian telescope is welcome to join the Gazers. “I get real excited when people do,” says Segovia with a laugh.
Besides the $400 telescope that was purchased with the clubs’ funds, the other technology used is a computer program called Starry Night, which allows them to know the names of the stars and planets they are currently viewing.
“Tonight you can see Jupiter by the moon,” Segovia says pointing to two white dots on her laptop. “We’re 99.9 percent sure that soon we will have a telescope that automatically follows events in the sky from a large database within the telescope itself,” says Linder, who is an active club member.
“The universe kind of freaks me out,” says Mandy Nolen, an Honor’s College student and new member of the Gazers. “It’s just so big!”
When asked why she joined the club she shrugged, “…It’s something I might enjoy.”
The Gazers hope to obtain many new members. They currently have about 15, but many will be graduating and leaving soon. The members are mostly Honors College and Jupiter students, with only a few commuters. Segovia explains that the members can meet at the Jupiter campus and then carpool over to Hobe Sound.
The clubs’ biggest upcoming event, which they have every year, is for the Lenoid, or Leonid, Meteor Showers. These annual showers happen every November. The club usually leaves Jupiter at around 11 p.m. to attend.
According to www.Science.Nasa.gov, Leonid meteoroids hit Earth’s atmosphere at about 158,000 mph, which is much faster than typical meteoroids. At its peak the 1998 Leonid meteor shower produced “only” 500 shooting stars per hour, well below the tens of thousands per hour that rained down during the 1966 Leonid Storm. “It’s really cool to see,” Segovia says.
She also mentions that with their telescope, on particular star parties, they were able to see rings around Saturn and its moons as well.
The club hopes to get more FAU students involved, but that is not all. They are visiting elementary schools, too. By bringing the telescope to elementary schools and allowing the kids to gaze through it and by having the children make “galaxies in a bottle,” which is actually sand art, they hope to extend their passion for astronomy to our future astronauts.
