Our Mission
Ad Astra! For over a thousand generations, the night sky has been an integral part of the human experience – we’ve found thirty thousand year old representations of the Moon and the constellations, ancient peoples built monuments to align with the heavens, and myths of every culture seek to describe and explain the wonder of the night sky. Nowadays, light pollution and busy schedules make it harder for us to step back and appreciate it all, but we know more about the stars and planets than at any other point in our history, and a star-filled sky still has a profound power to humble and inspire.
The Student Astronomers at Harvard-Radcliffe exists to (re)connect Harvard affiliates and community members with that part of our shared human heritage. We’re primarily an undergraduate-led organization, but we welcome anyone with an interest in the night sky we all share. Only a few of our members are actually studying astrophysics! If you’re at all fascinated by space, this is the organization for you.
What We Do
As part of our mission to share the Universe with the University, STAHR plays an active role in managing the Loomis-Michael Observatory, an historic 10″ refracting telescope located on the roof of the Science Center. We routinely run open houses where we open the dome to the public to peek at the moons of Jupiter, the rings of Saturn, the craters of the Moon, the polar ice caps of Mars, the Pleiades, the Orion Nebula, and a whole lot more! For those who need more stahr time, we run semesterly classes to train you to use the telescope on your own, culminating with the granting of swipe access to the observatory so you can observe whenever you feel like it. With a focal length of 150 inches and plenty of resolving power, we can routinely obtain magnifications greater than 300x. That’s enough detail to see the Great Red Spot!
But that’s not all! We also host surprise pop-up telescope nights whenever a quorum of our Board is available. On these special occasions, we wheel some of our smaller telescopes (including a brand-new 10″ Dobsonian reflector telescope courtesy of Celestron!) out onto the Science Center Plaza and introduce students and Cantabrigian passersby alike to the wonders of space. We generally hold them around dinnertime, and first-years on the way to or from Annenberg are especially welcome!
Our telescopes are delightful and powerful instruments, but they only let us see a vanishingly small part of the sky at any given time. To better experience the full majesty of the cosmos, we routinely head out beyond Boston’s aura of light pollution to places like Halibut Point State Park or Cape Cod National Seashore on STAHR Dark Sky Trips. These are free to all attendees thanks to funding from the HUA, and some of our Board members tag along to point out various celestial landmarks and provide a safe, guided experience. They’re easily semester highlight material!
Last but definitely not least, we host weekly community dinners for those who just can’t get enough STAHR in the Lowell Private Dining Room Sundays at 5:30pm! All are welcome to attend and join our wandering conversations about life, the Universe, and everything.