Every Friday night from 9 p.m. to midnight when the sky is clear, Cornell's Fuertes Observatory is open to the public. Visitors can peer through its telescopes and hear from members of the Cornell Astronomical Society talk about celestial bodies.

On Aug. 5, for example, a group gathered for Vesta Fiesta to celebrate the beginning of the NASA Dawn mission's visit to the asteroid Vesta. The Dawn spacecraft left Earth in September 2007 and entered orbit around Vesta, located in the asteroid belt, in July 2011.

The celebration included breaking a Vesta piñata, running a Dawn spacecraft relay race, touching actual pieces of Vesta (meteorites) and sampling some sweet "meteorite" treats.

In addition, Peter Thomas, Cornell senior researcher in astronomy, lectured on the Dawn mission and big asteroids.

Fuertes is no longer used for professional research. Instead, a few introductory astronomy classes hold lab sessions there.

The main telescope at Fuertes is a 12-inch refractor, with a mechanical tracking mechanism that is operated by weights, like a grandfather clock. Fuertes also has a number of smaller field telescopes.

Call 255-3557 for more information.