Rocks and Stars: Telescopes, Stars, and Planets

We drove for 20 minutes from Ogdensburg, New Jersey to the small township of Sparta, where Café Pierrot is located. After a full day at the mine (going down the tunnel, touring the museum, and rock collecting for my boys) with just hotdogs and sandwiches for lunch, we felt we deserved a proper sit-down dinner. My husband also needed to replenish his fresh bread supply. We found the perfect place on our way to Vestal, New York.

Café Pierrot is a quaint old house converted into a bakery-restaurant, with the bakery portion accessible through the side entrance by the parking lot. We went to get our bread first. The chef-owner was there and immediately asked us what we were looking for. After talking to my husband about his food intolerances, he made recommendations. He knew exactly what ingredients are used in every bakery item available that day. We bought a couple of baguettes and some Kaiser rolls. Then we asked for a table. We were led to the restaurant area which was has retained its old-fashioned charm with its antique fireplace, original hardwood flooring, intricate shelving units that are decorated in the farm house style, and fresh blooms.

My husband ordered the porcini mushroom risotto with asparagus spears. The original recipe has white wine along with homemade chicken stock, but they cooked it without the wine for him. I ordered a bowl of the seafood bisque to start and then the beef bourguignon – braised beef stew in a wine reduction sauce with mushrooms, pearl onions, and carrots over potatoes gratin. Our son had the chicken fingers served with fries.

The food was good, though, I couldn’t say spectacular. My husband was happy with his risotto and my son finished two huge pieces of chicken and most of the fries (the rest, I ate for late night dinner that night). My beef was a little on the salty side, but otherwise flavourful. In fact, the lady at the table next to ours asked me what I ordered and asked her server to give her the same thing.

I was disappointed to find out that they don’t serve alcohol, and that they are a BYOB (bring-your-own-beer) or BYOW (bring-your-own-wine) restaurant. I wanted a glass of wine but ordered a raspberry-flavoured iced tea instead and my husband went to buy beer at the liquor shop across the street.

After our meal, my husband said he was feeling sleepy. I told him to relax before we hit the road again. I ordered some coffee and he ordered dessert for us to share. He wanted to try the chocolate lava cake and the German chocolate brownie but he literally just had a bite from each. My son ate some of the lava cake. So guess who had to finish the sweets?

We left Sparta at past 7:00 p.m. The drive to Vestal was about two and half hours long. We headed northeast and passed through Pennsylvania, had our washroom break at a shopping mall in Scranton, drove through the night, and finally crossed the state border back to New York.

Our destination was the Kopernik Observatory and Science Centre, which involved driving through very dark country roads. While my boys were merrily singing along Springsteen tunes in the car, I was freaking out because on some sections, it felt like we were in the middle of nowhere with not a single house in sight and on some, we were on a single-lane, zigzag dirt road through a thicket of forest where all you see are trees around you and the dark sky up above.

Of course, I knew it was supposed to be this way. Observatories are usually situated on top of hills or mountains and away from the bright lights of the cities. This one is located atop a 1,720 feet hill in Vestal, about 20 kilometers southwest of Binghamton, a city in and the seat of Broome County. Still, I couldn’t help but feel uneasy. The isolation in almost-complete darkness could be quite unnerving.

We arrived there at 11:00 p.m. There were a number of cars parked in the lot that told us there was quite an interest in catching a glimpse of the Mars Opposition. This is when Mars lines up with the Sun and the Earth and we get the closest view of the Red Planet from Earth since 2003. The next time Mars will be this close will not be until 2035.

We checked in at reception and found out we missed an interesting talk called, “Journey to Mars,” which discussed how NASA is investing on technologies that enable the safe entry, descent, and landing of future robotic and human missions to the Red Planet. People have always had this fascination with Mars, its potential colonization, and the possibility for future humans to live and work there.

(Update: Fast forward to 2026 – The plan to send humans to Mars is getting more concrete everyday. The goal is to reach this target by 2030, using the Artemis lunar missions to test necessary technologies. SpaceX, on the other hand, has previously aimed for aggressive timelines, but Elon Musk indicated in early 2026 a focus on lunar missions, pushing back Mars ambitions. Crewed missions are complex, with 2030s to 2040s being considered realistic by many experts.)

The observatory offers interactive workshops for kids with various hands-on activities, but they are available only during the day. The only thing left for us to do was to view the skies using the telescopes they have set-up outside and are open for the public to use.

The Kopernik Observatory and Science Centre is a public observatory opened to the public in 1974 by the Kopernik Society of Broome County to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the birth of astronomer Nicolas Copernicus (Mikolaj Kopernik, in Polish).

Its mission is to offer hands-on investigations and outreach programs for kids of all ages and educate them in astronomy and other sciences using advanced optical telescopes, computers and other tools. It is the first science laboratory facility in New York State designed for K-12 teachers, students and their families, and has been one of the best-cited and best equipped public observatories in the Northeast United States for the last 40 years.

(Update: In 2025, I was able to visit Nicolas Copernicus’ hometown in Torun, Poland. I even saw his house, which is now a museum. I did not go inside, but I had a picture taken with the Nicolas Copernicus monument in Torun’s Old Market Square. The city has a university named after him.)

There were six portable telescopes set up on the grounds, each focusing on a particular celestial body. We viewed the moon, Venus, Jupiter and its moons, Saturn and its rings, the Milky Way galaxy, and a few constellations brightly visible that night. There were astronomers walking about, adjusting the telescopes, answering questions, and giving impromptu lectures.

When we had our fill on the grounds, we headed inside to see the Red Planet through one of the observatory’s optical telescopes. They have three main ones situated in the Western, Eastern, and Southern Equatorial Rooms. We were led to the Southern one to look at Mars up close. This telescope, donated by the Kopernik Astronomical Society, is one of the largest publicly usable telescopes in New York State. And since the clouds were gradually blocking the view of Mars, the astronomer on duty announced he was going to adjust the telescope to focus on Saturn instead. We went for a second round of viewing until he announced that they were going to pack up. Most of the visitors have left and only a handful of us were still there.

My husband and son checked out the gift shop and found some astronomical magazines being sold for less than half the regular prize. After making the purchase, we left the facility and again travelled the same country roads back to “civilization.”

We booked a hotel in Binghamton, the closest city. Our room was a suite, double the size of our New Jersey room and had a fully-equipped kitchen and ultra-spacious bathroom. But again, since it was late in the night, all we did was unload our stuff and sleep. My husband stayed up to wash the rocks from Sterling Hill. I saw them neatly lined up on paper towels on the kitchen counter when I woke up the following morning, as if they were being auctioned off.

There was no breakfast included in our hotel package, so we opted to sleep in. But the hotel has a “Cupboard” area where one can avail of breakfast cereal, oatmeal cups, granola bars, fruits, frozen entrees, snacks, beverages, and other items one may need for meal preparation. I bought a frozen entrée and ate the bread and leftovers we got from the bakery the previous night. Then we quickly packed and checked-out.

We left Binghamton at around 11 a.m. and began our long journey back home to Ottawa via Highway 81. We only stopped once at a rest area past Syracuse for a snack and washroom break then drove straight to Alexandria Bay where we crossed the Thousand Islands Border into Canada.

Towards the end, we were all very hungry but we decided we’d wait till we reached the Canadian side to have our dinner. We couldn’t find a suitable place around the area, so we ended up just getting gas and coffee at an ONroute stop in Mallorytown and continued on Highway 401 then 416 back to Ottawa.

We drove all the way to Merivale Avenue in Nepean to have seafood dinner at Red Lobster. I guess my husband was craving some seafood at a familiar place after having been away for more than a week.

I was so famished that I finished everything on my plate. I had the “Ultimate Feast” combo platter, which included snow crab legs, a Maritime lobster tail, garlic shrimps, and breaded butterfly shrimps. It came with their signature cornbread and I ordered my usual Shrimp Caesar. My husband had a custom plate of oven-broiled sole, fire-grilled sirloin steak, garlic shrimps, baked potatoes, and sautéed asparagus. We ordered a plate of fire-grilled scallops, rice, and veggies for our son. My husband shared his steak and sole with him as well. No one shared with me as my boys were not huge fans of shellfish. Man, we ate a lot!

After dinner, we drove back home, unloaded the car, and slept. We left the unpacking for the next day, that is…in the late afternoon…for we all slept like logs until after lunch.

We took a break from travelling for the rest of the week. My husband went back to work, while I stayed home with our son for another week, occasionally going on day trips around the city for some fun activities until yet another “star-studded” trip at the very end of summer.