Scattered footprints traced the snow outside of East Hall as bundled students lined up under the setting sun, waiting to look through telescopes and experience a planetary parade among the stars.

Students saw Mars, Venus and Jupiter through telescopes during a planetary viewing on Friday, organized by the University of Rhode Island’s physics department.

“Whenever I get students to put their eyes to the eyepiece, I hear one word again and again and again, ‘wow,’” astronomy professor Doug Gobellie said. “There is something uniquely human I find in this experience of exploration.” 

The viewing was a first for many – including first-year student Sophia Mongello.

“I’ve never actually looked through a telescope before, and that was why I took an astronomy class, because I wanted to know what it’s really like,” Mongello said. “I was able to see almost like half a moon, Pac Man shape in the sky.”

Even for students who had prior experience with working telescopes, such as first-year student Morgan Lawrence, the experience was still new and captivating.

“I’ve been really interested in space from a young age; my dad bought me a telescope a couple of years ago,” Lawrance said. “I’ve seen the moon and things but nothing of this caliber.” 

Before the skygazing, Gobeille held a colloquium in the East Hall Auditorium. He discussed the way stars and planets appear to configure and unionize in the sky in an arrangement scientifically known as syzygy.

“While you can see any of these planets generally on any given night, it’s not always that common that we can see so many planets all at once,” Gobeille said. “During a semester when I’ll be giving labs for my students, we may only see one or two planets the whole term.” 

URI’s physics department wanted to give students an opportunity to not just witness a planetary phenomenon, but also experience it, according to Gobeille. 

Physically looking through a telescope is a more exploratory type of experience compared to finding constellation images online, according to Gobeille. 

“We want to be able to make [astronomy] available to people,” Gobeille said.

The colloquium and viewing also helped bring awareness toward astrophotography, the use of photography in astronomy, Gobeille said. The study is something that he hopes to promote on campus.

“There’s an in-between point where we can meet art and research together and that’s what we’re trying to build here,” Gobellie said.

Gobeille wants to form a club where students can find that in-between, expanding their knowledge by learning about topics such as astrophotography.

Gobielle said he constantly jokes that part of the reason he kept teaching astronomy was so he did not have to enter the real world.

“I like being Peter Pan on my little island and staying young forever,” Gobellie said. “And this is me trying to help other people with that.” 

Visit @physicsuri on Instagram for more information about astronomy and physics at URI.

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