The Courier recently caught up with Dr. Mike Hoffert, Professor of Astronomy, to learn a little more about how the heavens inspire him and his students.

Q: What was your main goal in starting the Tierra Astronomical Institute?

MH: Our main goal was to give high school, junior high school and 4-year colleges for graduate students the opportunity to do research on an astronomical subject. You can go to the major facilities but they are booked and reserved for the major universities.

Q: How did you get started in building the telescope?

MH: We built the building ourselves. Some of the telescope pieces were built by hand. Some of it was hired out to people who did really good work and didn't charge us a lot of money. Located down in the mountains in San Diego, a lot of colleges down in San Diego County go and do research there. Concordia and many students have gone down there several times. A lot of the funding came from our own pockets.

Q: How did you get started on expanding the Astronomy program here at Concordia?

MH: Back in 2007, I helped prepare a pitch to The Keck Foundation in the hopes of getting a grant to help start our astronomy program here at Concordia. We went through the three-year interview process to get this grant. We rolled the dice, and we got lucky. We eventually got bids for all the equipment whether it was computers telescopes or building equipment. 

Q: What are some things on campus that you were able to do with the Keck grant?

MH: There is a multitude of telescopes on our campus and our three large telescopes are housed in the ExploraDome enclosures. And there are three more down by the baseball field that we also use. Most of the funding went to various telescopes and building the domes. There are a lot of different parts and mounts that we needed to purchase for the telescopes as well. 

Q: What are some ways for students who are interested in Astronomy to feed their curiosity?

MH: I teach two classes on Astronomy here at Concordia. One is on the solar system the other is on stars and galaxies. Physics 231 "Planetary Astronomy & Physics 232 "Stellar Astronomy". [We have run simulations] in Astronomy that were classified as augmented reality; the students via their cell phones or laptop computers were able to control the conditions of the simulations and learn more about the subject at hand through their experimentation. These classes are great for students interested in Astronomy. We had two to three hundred people out here for a lunar eclipse behind the business building with a bunch of telescopes set up. It was way too cool. We try to do things like this on campus.

Q: What is one of the most interesting or astounding things about the Universe?

MH: Einstein was typically blown away as he learned more about the Universe. He started as an agnostic. And as he got more into the miracle and details of how the universe operates through physics he realized that this isn’t an accident. This is a complex miracle built so that whoever is living here can comprehend the world. There is a definite structure and a beautiful simplicity that runs through all of this and makes it understandable. Einstein became closer to [God] by learning about what creation entails. That is pretty amazing.

Interested in learning more about Concordia’s telescopes and do some stargazing of your own? Join the next Campus Star party on Tues., Nov 8 for the Total Lunar Eclipse. Contact Dr. Hoffert at mike.hoffert@cui.edu for details.

 

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