Eastern’s astronomy department is shooting for the stars, literally.

Thursday evening, James Conwell, an astronomy professor, and students from the Astronomy Club assembled a new 16-inch Schmidt Cassegrain telescope in the recently completed observatory, which is located by Eastern’s new intramural fields.

After about one week of trial and error movements, the telescope will be positioned inside the observatory at a one-100th degree angle from the Northern Celestial Hole. It is positioned around this spot so it is able to follow the Earth’s rotation and allow students to track objects as they move across the sky, Conwell said.

Because the telescope is located inside the observatory, which has a dome cover, students will be able to observe the sky in 30 mph winds. If there was not a dome on the observatory, students would have to stop viewing when winds reached 6 mph, Conwell said.

Other universities in the state have telescopes as well, but P. Scott Smith, a former Eastern astronomy professor, said he believes Eastern’s new scope is step ahead of the rest.

“There are not too many telescopes in the state like this one,” Smith said. “I believe we may have the best in the state.”

Beside possibly being the best in state, the new telescope will offer a whole new educational experience to students.

“The telescope is just something else that is going to increase the education opportunities for students,” University President Lou Hencken said. “Soon, students will be able to use this wonderful piece of equipment that students in the past haven’t been able to use.”

Before the addition of the observatory and telescope, astronomy students had to go to the top of the Physical Science building to star gaze, which is what most other students in the state are doing at their universities, Smith said.

“We always went to the roof of the science building, where it was extremely shaky and would rain six times out of seven,” said Smith, who taught at Eastern for 37 years.

Planning and construction for the observatory began three years ago, but plans for the purchase and installment of the telescope began one year ago, Conwell said.

Funds for the telescope were contributed by Smith and Randy Wright, who is also a former Eastern astronomy professor.

“Dr. Keith Andrew, who was the (astronomy department’s) former chair, had the idea to build an observatory, and he contacted Wright,” Conwell said. “The two of them got the project going, and then I, with the help of the students from the Astronomy Club, stepped in later to oversee the project.”

Once the telescope is actually up and running, which Conwell said should be within the next few weeks, students plan to start observing right away.

The first thing students will be doing is searching for supernovas, which, next to the Big-Bang Theory, are the most violent explosions in the universe, Conwell said.

“There is typically one supernova every century in each galaxy,” Conwell said. “You can see them up to four, five or six billion light years away, but we’ll take the first one we can get.”

The new telescope, which will be mainly operated by the Astronomy Club students, gives students the opportunity to perform actual research and develop an independent study, Conwell said.

“I think (the telescope) will certainly offer an education that will broaden our horizons,” said Kelsey Hedlund, a freshman member of the Astronomy club. “Hopefully, it will attract more people to our group as well.”

Though the Astronomy Club focuses on astronomy, Conwell said the club is open to all majors.

“The past two presidents of the club have been philosophy and English majors,” Conwell said.

The telescope will also be open to the public for viewing. Conwell said he believes the first public viewing will be sometime in October or soon there after.

Though everyone is anxious to get the telescope ready to use, fine tuning and the construction of the control room must first be complete.

“Basically, before anyone can play with the toys, I have to learn how to use them,” Conwell said.