“That really bright one. Yeah. Yep. That's Jupiter,” said David Hall.
He works at the USU Observatory. Up on the roof of the Science Engineering Research building, it is so dark you can only see his silhouette.
That’s on purpose. Every month hundreds of people line up to look through the observatory’s telescope.
“Teaching people about the stars and how they work and what constellations are where and how to find them,” Hall said.
Cutting out all the lights down here on the roof helps them see more in the night sky. They use red lights to show the way to the observatory without ruining people’s night vision.
“You want to limit white light as much as you can,” said James Coburn.
He’s the observatory manager. He said the telescope works by gathering up light like a funnel to point a lot of light right into your pupil. The more excess light it picks up from non-celestial objects like buildings and cars, the dimmer the objects in the telescope appear.
“We built the observatory here on campus where there's light pollution. Legacy field is probably our biggest light pollution problem here,” Coburn said.
Research from the journal Science said the sky is getting 10% brighter every year, making it more and more difficult to see the stars. All that light is coming from streetlights, your car and your house.
“It is an issue, it limits what stars you can see. If you look at the lights around campus, they're mostly pointed down. Light that goes up in the sky doesn't help anybody see,” Coburn said.
Coburn said he works with USU facilities to keep light pollution at a minimum each time they put up a new building.
“They're trying to make campus friendly for light pollution,” he said.
Even with all the light pollution making it more difficult to see, Coburn said there is nothing like seeing a planet through a telescope.
“You've seen pictures of Saturn all your life. When you see it in a telescope, you go, 'Wow.'”
