This fall, the University of Alabama Department of Physics and Astronomy will host five events where students and the public alike are invited to come take advantage of the University’s various telescopes.

The first of the five is going to be held this Friday, Sept. 9, at 7:30 p.m. and will allow attendees to look through a 16-inch research-grade reflector telescope on the rooftop of Gallalee Hall.

“The viewings are as much for the students as for the community,” said Dean Townsley, assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. “They are an opportunity for people to come out and talk to people who work with astronomy and ask questions. There really isn’t an active amateur astronomy group in our community, so this really helps the community have a place to learn and talk to experts. It is especially helpful when they have questions about things that they see in the news like super nova.”

Different professors within the department will host the events and will each use different telescopes in order to view various aspects of the sky such as the moon, Jupiter, the sun and stars.

The second of the five viewings will take place on Oct. 8 on the Quad and will be hosted by William Keel, a professor of astronomy. During this particular event, participants will have the opportunity to partake in a safe solar viewing.

“The human eye is not designed to stare at the sun, so to view things on the sun properly, you need special filters,” Keel said. “So, we are setting up a telescope that will be used for nothing but viewing the sun so that the filters cannot be removed. That way, it will be safe for viewing sunspots, and so forth.”

Keel explained that, because the event will take place during homecoming, they would truly be able to bring the viewing to the people using only eight and 10 inch telescopes.

On Friday, Oct. 21 at 7 p.m. the event will be held in a field across the road from the Moundville Archeological Park Museum. Although there will be a couple smaller telescopes and a couple larger ones, the events true worth lies in its location.

“The reason we go to Moundville is because the sky is so much darker,” Townsley said. “There is a lot of water vapor in the air, as well as no streetlights. With the sky so much darker, you can see many of the dimmer objects out there. For instance, you can see nebulae, which are gas clouds.”

Some of the other viewing dates will include Friday, Nov. 11 at 7 p.m. on the Gallalee Hall rooftop and Dec. 2 at 7 p.m., also on the Gallalee Hall rooftop. Although the events have all been scheduled for set dates and times, all of the sky viewings will be moved according to the weather.

“I want to remind people we aren’t making this stuff up,” Keel said. “There is a whole universe up there, and it can really expand your mind to consider it.”