Photo Credits: Emily Berg ’28
By Emily Berg ’28
Science & Environment Editor
After an eventful day of Family and Friends Weekend programming, students and their guests concluded the evening of Oct. 26 by enjoying a tradition of cosmic conversations and observations with astronomy faculty and students in Mount Holyoke College’s oldest continuously-used academic building, Williston Observatory.
The John Payson Williston Observatory held its open house on Oct. 26 in an event where current astronomy students and faculty answered questions and facilitated viewings of space objects. Visitors lined up for a chance to view Saturn and Jupiter through the College’s 1880s-era Clark refractor, while those outside the observatory huddled around one of the more recently acquired Unistellar eVscope 2 telescopes to focus on the Blue Oyster Nebula and Andromeda Galaxy. The observatory hosts open houses for Mount Holyoke community members throughout the year, but this event was a special opportunity for family and friends to step into a living piece of the school’s history, and experience Mount Holyoke’s mission through the context of the astronomy program.
For some visitors, this was an opportunity to examine outer space for the first time. “There were lots of people that were clearly really captivated by what they were seeing,” Hannah Rubinstein ’28, an astronomy student volunteer, said. “It was this really nice moment for me, because that's how I feel about space and studying the stars.” A highlight of her evening was finding distinct features of Jupiter and being able to share those observations with visitors through the Clark refractor.
For Ivy Bailey ’28, this event was an opportunity to invite her family to experience some of the history of Mount Holyoke. “It's a pleasure to be able to interact with something as old and kind of removed from normal life at Mount Holyoke through [astronomy],” said Bailey. “Getting to see the 1860s architecture and mechanisms [was] unique, even if they're not as functional as modern technology, which we do have.”
The building itself not only houses a collection of functioning telescopes, but also archives of former student and faculty work. Photographs of some of the first astronomy students and observatory directors line the walls of the classroom and staircase towards the dome, showcasing the program’s pioneering community.
Current Observatory Director and Visiting Professor of Astronomy Thomas Burbine emphasized the personalized attention and hands-on research opportunities that have been provided through the astronomy program since its beginning. “We had a historian who was visiting, and they would talk about [how] a lot of women could get their start in astronomy, get access to everything, and then they had a lot of trouble going [out] in what's called the ‘real world,’ because there weren't as many opportunities,” Burbine said. He mentions how important it is to care about the interests of the individual students within this program. “[This] may not be the case at bigger schools where you have huge classes. I know pretty much all the astronomy majors. I try to help them out.”
Burbine also encourages students outside of the astronomy department to participate in these open houses in the future. He intends to keep the observatory accessible and give all students the opportunity to view future cosmic events as often as possible. “Not every school has … a full functioning observatory right on campus. Sometimes you have to travel … miles, and it allows us, if something is happening, to be able to come here … immediately,” Burbine said. He expects Mount Holyoke College students will have the opportunity to view meteor showers in the coming months, as well as Jupiter and Saturn as they continue to become more visible. “Maybe a supernova will occur, we never know, so hopefully some will happen, but we’re ready on a moment's notice,” Burbine said.
The Williston Observatory invites friends and family of the Mount Holyoke community to not only step into the past, but view the present through the lenses of both its pioneers and current students at these open houses.
“Even though we're studying things that are … very far away, it's sort of about bringing those things a little bit closer to people … making [them] feel more real, so that we build a better … cultural understanding of where we are in the universe,” Rubinstein said.