What a peculiar thing space is: infinite, yet tiny in life; the source of everything, but filled with nothing. It teaches us, as it did Einstein, Newton, and Galileo, how small we truly are, but how much we make ourselves matter. This “space” is everything there ever will be; it is everything, all at once, influencing time and boggling the human mind. It has been and will be here forever, truly one of the greatest mysteries to ever exist.
We look up at the sky, the same sky that witnessed the birth of the universe, the formation of stars and galaxies, the rise of humanity… and someday the end of time itself. Here, on a lone rock adrift in the universe, we are incomprehensibly small, yet quietly powerful, unraveling mysteries that define our world. In Room 251 of The Haverford School, a small class is doing exactly that.
“My favorite part of the visit was seeing the telescopes that recorded many of the pictures we saw in class up close.”
Zac Fuscaldo ’25
This year marks the fourteenth time science teacher Mr. Jamison Maley and the astronomy class have made a visit to the Villanova Observatory, hosted by Professor Laurence DeWarf. The astronomy class itself covers such topics as stellar astrophysics, cosmology, quasars and active galaxies, black holes, and LAWKI (life as we know it). The observatory used by the faculty and students at Villanova includes at least two Celestron fourteen-inch telescopes and a PlaneWave Instruments CDK20 20-inch telescope. The students use these telescopes to see distant galaxies thousands of light years away.
“My favorite part of the visit was seeing the telescopes that recorded many of the pictures we saw in class up close,” Sixth Former Zac Fuscaldo said.
These hands-on connections are exactly what Mr. Maley hoped the trip would offer: “The trip is a logical follow-up to Chapter 6, which covers the observational techniques used by astronomers,” Mr. Maley said. “In chapter 6, the students see how astronomers apply methods like photometry, spectroscopy, radio astronomy, and the use of charge-coupled devices (CCDs), in addition to the obligatory discussion of refracting and reflecting telescopes. The trip to Villanova allows the students to see many of these techniques being actively applied in real life”.
For Mr. Maley, this experience echoed his own time in astronomy, when, as a graduate student, he helped to conduct a variability study of the young star cluster IC 348. Professor DeWarf was also an instructor back when Maley was an undergraduate astronomy major. As Maley points out, “Professor DeWarf was always a superb communicator of the sciences, both then and now when he is speaking to my own students”.
The trip to Villanova brought a tangible aspect to a highly theoretical course, bridging the gap between classroom principles and real-world applications and providing a distinctive impact on students.
“I feel so lucky to have taken a class with Mr. Maley after hearing how great his classes were for years.”
Zac Fuscaldo ’25
“The astronomy class has changed the way I look at how old the universe is.” Fuscaldo said. “Before taking the class, I could not comprehend the connection between speed, distance, and time being related to something that could be infinite, but Mr. Maley has done an incredible job at making such difficult topics easier to understand.”
The Villanova Observatory is located on the fourth floor of the Mendel Science Center, but due to high light pollution from the area nearby, the observatory includes digital technology that can subtract the pollution, so students see the sky clearly.
One of the most special moments of the trip for Mr. Maley was when one of the students in the class collected a free, framed photo of the Eta Carinae star system, a binary system seven and a half thousand light years away. This image was taken by the famous Hubble telescope in 1995 and had just been shown previously in a PowerPoint by Maley. Eta Carinae was once the second brightest star system in the night sky, outshone only by Sirius, a star almost a thousand times closer to Earth.
Students expressed real appreciation for both the trip and Mr. Maley’s teaching.
“I feel so lucky to have taken a class with Mr. Maley after hearing how great his classes were for years,” Fuscaldo said.
Fittingly, the trip came just as astronomers announced a potential signature of life on a distant planet—proof that the universe still has plenty of mysteries waiting to be explored.