Photos Ken Valenti
By Ken Valenti
Finn Larsow – Photo Ken Valenti
WESTPORT–When Finn Larsow, 9, peered at the pocked surface of the moon through the Celestron telescope in the Westport Observatory tower near the Merritt Parkway, he made a small discovery.
“I didn’t know that there were so many craters,” said the New Canaan resident, visiting with his mother, Dr. Tiana Larsow, and his brother Lars, 4.
Dr. Larsow had only recently learned of this weekly opportunity to gaze into the heavens to see stars, planets, nebulas and galaxies and more. Yet, it’s there every Wednesday that there’s a clear night, presented by the Westport Astronomical Society at 182 Bayberry Lane.
And everyone is invited.
“It connects you, in a small way, to the universe,” Dr. Larsow said.
The observatory rises 40 feet from the highest point in Westport, which is 269 feet above sea level. The 14-inch diameter telescope is about the largest that an amateur astronomer would buy, saying it cost as much as “a good used car,” said WAS member Keith Smith.
It is a catadioptric telescope, which is a type of folded telescope that uses mirrors inside to bounce light back and forth, giving it the magnification power of a folded telescope because mirrors inside its tube bounce light back and forth to pack a longer focal lengths into a shorter body.
“You can easily see the moons of Jupiter, you can see the rings of Saturn,” Smith said. “You can see galaxies and nebulas and star clusters.”
They also own a telescope with a 25-inch mirror that they use from the ground during the public viewings.
“We have the largest telescope that’s available to the public in Connecticut, “ said WAS President Shannon Calvert.
In addition to the Wednesday viewings, the society has welcomed visitors to observe special occurrences through their instruments, such as the launch of the Artemis II mission around the moon in April, and the Transit of Mercury in November 2019, when the solar system’s smallest planet passed between the Earth and the sun.
It’s far from the only public event the society holds. Every third Thursday of the month, they hold a public lecture on space matters with experts from institutions such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the American Museum of Natural History and Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory.
Recent talks have included “Search for Life in the Universe” by Adam Frank, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Rochester; “Cosmic Sound, the Emergence of Structure in the Universe” by Stephon Alexander, director of the Center for Theoretical Physics and Innovation at Brown University; and “The International Axion Observatory” by Yue Yu, a postdoctoral research scientist in the Columbia Astrophysics Laboratory.
Anyone interested can also watch the talks on Zoom or WAS’s YouTube channel.
The observatory sits on the 10-acre site that once held a radar tracking tower for Nike Missiles during the Cold War. It includes a seismometer for measuring earthquakes.
“If somebody says there’s a 7.2 (magnitude earthquake) in Japan, you’ll see the wiggles here,” Smith said.
The society is made up of some 160 members, Calvert said, including some scientists, but “mostly just local families and residents that are interested in seeing what’s out there.”
Westport Astronomical Society
182 Bayberry Lane
Westport
Ken Valenti
A career journalist and lifelong resident of the New York City region, Ken Valenti has enjoyed decades of reporting local, regional and national news in New York and Connecticut. Topics of special interest are development, the environment, Long Island Sound and transportation. When not reporting, he’s always on the lookout for the perfect coffee shop or used book sale.