MISSOULA — If you've ever wanted to take a deeper look at our solar system, telescopes are coming to a library near you.
A collaboration between the Missoula Public Library's spectrUM Discovery Area and NASA is bringing 124 new telescopes to public and tribal college libraries across the state.
WATCH COVERAGE BELOW:
"Montana's great for stargazing because we don't have a lot of very, big cities that have a lot of light pollution, so there's a lot of rural places with dark skies that you can see a lot of stars, constellations, planets, etc.," Telescope Programs Associate Director Nicholos Wethington told MTN.
The $250,000 in grant funding from NASA's Team II STEM Innovator Award aims to make astronomy accessible to all Montanans since all telescopes are specifically designed to be are user friendly.
"It increases access for people to explore astronomy, get inspired about space, maybe work at NASA," Wethington said.
The program originated in 2013 with the telescope at the Missoula Public Library.
"This one has been checked out over 200 times since we put it in circulation," Wethington said.
Since then, Wethington and spectrUM have brought telescopes to other locations in Western Montana.
"I've had a few telescopes donated to the club that I set up in libraries like in Darby or Stevensville. Then we had a small grant at Spectrum to get a few more in places like Ronan and Thompson Falls," Wethington detailed. "In places like Hamilton where I set up a telescope that was so popular that they had to add a second one."
The goal is to have a telescope at all libraries by mid-September.
"Inspiring them with that sense of like wonder and curiosity about the world around them and about our universe and just the Milky Way galaxy I think is something that's really important to me," Wethington said.
Then, all you need is a library card to check one out for up to a week.
