Manda Smith peers through a telescope during the Lawrence astronomy club's June meeting in South Park where the public was invited to view the stars.

The Lawrence astronomy club held their June meeting in South Park inviting the public to view the stars.

The Lawrence astronomy club held their June meeting in South Park inviting the public to view the stars. Club organizer Rick Heschmeyer, right, checks his iPad for information on star distances with his son Michael.

The Lawrence astronomy club held their June meeting in South Park inviting the public to view the stars. David Kolb looks through his telescope at the planet Saturn.

Members of Lawrence’s astronomy club used to perch atop Lindley Hall and use the telescopes in the shiny silver dome that sits on the roof.

Rick Heschmeyer, president of Astronomy Associates of Lawrence, said the club also tried observing from on top of Memorial Stadium.

But the lights from the football field prevented them from being able to see very much.

So now they’re more likely to be found at the Prairie Park Nature Center for their monthly gatherings, or in South Park after city band concerts, sharing their high-powered telescopes with the public.

“It’s pretty cool looking at stuff in the night sky,” Heschmeyer said during one of those public viewings.

One of those cool things, he said, is that everything is so far away. The light from most stars has taken quite a long time to reach our eyes.

“When you’re looking through a telescope, it’s like you’re looking back in time,” he said.

Steve Hawley, a KU physics and astronomy professor, remembered going up in Lindley Hall to use the telescopes when he was a student at KU.

Today, he said, no one is allowed on the roof because of structural issues.

Soon, he said, KU students will have remote access to a 50-inch telescope in San Diego. They will share it with other universities, and will be able to control it from Malott Hall.

“That’ll be a nice thing for our students to use,” he said.

A telescope remains in the dome in Lindley Hall — a six-inch telescope made by Alvan Clark, a famous telescope maker.

“It’s quite a historically important telescope sitting up there in the dome,” Hawley said, adding that he hoped KU would find a way to get it down sometime.

The astronomy club still accepts new members — it’s $6 for a student and $12 for a family, and people can sign up on the club’s website, groups.ku.edu/~astronomy/.

Heschmeyer estimates the club has about 25 or 30 members now.

They update their site and a phone number, 785-864-3166 (which is the number to the old observatory on Lindley Hall), with information about where they’re going to be meeting, and whether they’re facing weather-related delays.

They’re also on Facebook, Heschmeyer said.

Back in South Park, David Kolb of Lawrence, a part-time community college astronomy teacher, had his telescope trained on Saturn in the night sky.

He was showing it off to children and adults alike, who could clearly see the planet and its rings in the powerful scope.

“I guess the first thing that went through my head was, ‘What an awesome universe,'” said an impressed Doug Baker, of Lawrence, who stopped off at the telescopes after the band concert. “And to be able to bring it right down to South Park.”

He had never seen Saturn in a telescope before, he said.

“It reminds me how small we are, and how small the world’s becoming.”