LAST PAGE: John Zielinski, 71
All about the stars — A retired visiting assistant professor at SUNY Oswego returns to the Rice Creek Field Station’s observatory February and March to lead free public telescope observation sessions
By Mary Beth Roach
Q: Can you share with our readers what those free public telescope observation sessions are going to cover?
A: We pick a weekend near the first quarter moon; it’s the right-hand side of the moon that’s illuminated. That gives us a big bright object to look at. We usually have one or two bright planets available, like Jupiter. You can see the surface of Jupiter, we can see at least four of its big moons. We like to look at Saturn, you can see the rings and some of its moons. There are clusters of stars, there are glowing clouds of gases. So, we usually look at about six different celestial objects, but the moon, the bright planets and the galaxies and star clusters. Every once in a while, a really bright satellite will fly over, and we’ll look at that, but with our naked eyes.
Q: What is it that fascinates you about the skies?
A: Its beauty. The sky is so beautiful. There are all these different types of landscapes in nature. People go out to look at the mountains and the Grand Canyon. People view ocean sunsets. They’ll even takes safaris to Africa to see wildlife in their natural setting. The night skies are another one of these natural landscapes. And it’s free, and it’s there every day, and it costs nothing to look at. It’s beautiful, intriguing. And you can appreciate all these landscapes, including the night sky without any knowledge of the underlying science. You don’t have to know anything about physics or chemistry or geology to be fascinated by images of the moon or the planets or the stars. Now if you do know something about the underlying science, it then even becomes more interesting.
Q: What can we learn from viewing the skies?
A: All right, three things come to mind. The night sky and observations of the of the moon, the planets and the stars have formed, through history, the basis for time keeping and the calendar. They can be used for celestial navigation and, in modern times, with the observational equipment we have, the objects that we look at are essentially laboratories where we can study. Various theories of physics, chemistry and geology that you just can’t create in a laboratory. The conditions of temperature and pressure and density are just so extreme, we don’t know how to do that on Earth. But these conditions are readily available in the stars, or readily available from information that we can get from the light from these celestial objects.
Q: Why do you think that the skies capture the imaginations of so many people?
A: They find the sky to be beautiful. For the first time in human existence, we live in an era of active space exploration. There’s also this cultural aspect that our entertainment often involves space, and we have these active research programs.
Q: You worked for SUNY Oswego from 2012 to 2021. You’ve been gone for four or five years. What brings you back to do these programs?
A: Running that observatory on those weekends is one of the most fulfilling things I’ve ever done in my life. The adults are just so interested. And some sometimes, with families, the mothers and fathers are interested and so are the children. It’s just so rewarding.
The two free public telescope observation sessions are scheduled for Feb. 21-23 and May 2-4. For more information on these programs or the Pi Day Total Lunar Eclipse Telescope Session that Zielinski is involved in presenting in March, visit ww1.oswego.edu/rice-creek.