As the sun set during a clear, mild Friday evening early in the fall 2026 semester, visitors thronged the rooftop deck of Fuertes Observatory. The darkening skies were bringing an increasing number of stars into view, and several standing telescopes offered magnified vistas of distant celestial objects. Students from the Cornell Astronomical Society helped operate the instruments, managed the crowd, and explained some of the night sky’s visible features.
For more than half a century, the student group has hosted weekly open houses and tours at the observatory during the academic year, with the events open to Cornellians and the local community.
“It’s a lot of outreach every Friday night—eight to midnight, rain or shine, clouds or not,” says College of Arts & Sciences student Treyton Grahn ’27, the group’s president.
Read the full story on the Cornellians website.
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