Andrew Morrison controls five planets, the moon and the sun.

Well, at least NIU’s perspective of them.

Morrison, a graduate student in physics, manages the Davis Hall Observatory. He said he always has had a passion for stargazing, even when he didn’t have access to such a powerful telescope as he does now.

“I can remember stargazing with my family when I was younger with a really small telescope and some binoculars,” Morrison said. “Also, frequent trips to the science museum always included a planetarium show.”

Morrison said his favorite planet is a familiar one.

“I’m kind of partial to Earth, since it’s been my home for awhile,” he said. “As for for the other planets, I’m intrigued by Venus since it is so close in size to Earth. But Venus is boring to look at through the telescope since it is completely covered with a thick layer of clouds, so I like to look at Jupiter and its moons the most.”

Physics professor David Hedin said Morrison does an excellent job making his passion accessible to the NIU community.

“He’s a very personable guy,” Hedin said. “He is a very good physics teacher and stands a good chance getting a job teaching.”

Morrison said he has visited many observatories, with a Russian location being his favorite.

“The most interesting observatory I’ve ever been to was the Pulkovo Observatory located outside of St. Petersburg, Russia,” Morrison said. “There is a great museum there on the history of Russian astronomy and they have radio telescopes there and a large solar telescope. Unfortunately, it was cloudy the day I was there.”

Morrison has, on occasion, witnessed Unidentified Flying Objects, otherwise known as UFOs.

“I’ve seen plenty of unidentified flying objects in the sky, but none that I think were from another planet,” he said. “When I was an undergrad, I had the poster from ‘The X-Files’ of the UFO poster with the words ‘I WANT TO BELIEVE’ on it.”

Morrison said his job performance frequently depends on the weather.

“People that come to the observatory can get a decent cheap date if the sky is clear,” he said. “If the sky is cloudy they can get a possibly boring mini-lecture on how a telescope works.”

s amazed at how much himself and others have been able to learn about objects in space just by viewing the light they emit.

“Almost everything we know about astronomy was learned by looking upwards and making clever observations of the light from distant objects in space. If you think about it, it is really quite amazing,” he said. “There is little chance of us ever being able to visit a distant star, nebula, star cluster or galaxy yet, we are able to learn a vast amount about their composition just by looking at the light they emit, it’s awesome.”