When students pass the Theodor Jacobsen Observatory, they rarely give it a second glance. It almost looks abandoned — and except for FIG groups who are required to go, not many people think much about it.

But this building is very alive — at least at night. This hasn't been the case until recently, however.

The observatory is the second-oldest building on campus and was built using the leftovers of Denny Hall, the first building on campus.

"The telescopes and the observatory itself hadn't been used since the 1960s or 1970s," said Liz Williams, a senior English major who volunteers at the observatory. "But 11 years ago, undergraduates started to clean up the observatory and started [an] open house program."

Williams is among a handful of students who volunteer at the open houses, held every first and third Wednesday of the month, at the observatory. But according to Williams, starting up the observatory was and still is quite a challenge.

"Everything is manual because it's from the 1800s, and everything was broken," she said. "The grandfather clock was broken until an anonymous sponsor fixed it, and the transit telescope still doesn't work."

But maybe the problem isn't that it doesn't work. A transit telescope, used to catalogue stars, relies on the Earth's rotation to bring objects into view.

"It's not that it's broken; we just don't know how it works quite yet," senior astronomy major Shannon Schmoll said.

"We know that the telescope was used to measure time before atomic clocks," Schmoll continued. "At one point, this transit telescope was the transit telescope for all the Northwest and its ships. ... Somebody in Tacoma would tell us that they just saw a star and you would calculate how long it took to get to your location."

But Schmoll agreed that there are a number of problems because of the observatory's age.

"The whole slit usually opens up at the observatory so that people can see the sky, but when it rains the wood swells up and the slit gets stuck," she said.

In rainy Seattle, that problem often arises — so much so that the observatory is closed from November through February, the rainiest months of the year.

Despite its age, the observatory is said to be in very good condition. The telescope in the observatory deck remains the main attraction.

"It is one of the smallest of its kind," astronomy major Alex Parker said. "It has a six-inch refractor and it's not anything spectacular, but it is respectable coming from its time."

The observatory attracts many younger students on field trips, wich, according to Parker, is when one's desire to become an astronomer comes to life.

"It's a common theme for astronomers to say that they've been building telescopes since they were a kid. But it's really when you're 6 or 7 years old that it crystallizes," he said.

Parker built his own telescope when he was young, and said he always knew he wanted to be an astronomer.

Volunteering at the observatory, however, is certainly not limited to astronomy majors.

"Anyone who has taken an introductory astronomy course can sign up to take the class, which includes volunteering," astronomy lecturer Ana Larson said.

But most volunteers continue to work far past their one quarter of class. Kinsley Ogunmola, a senior majoring in applied and computational mathematics, has been volunteering at the observatory for four years.

"It's all about learning," Larson said. "The observatory was never intended for research. It has always been for educational purposes."

Indeed, there is a lot to see and learn when one visits the observatory. Not only can one look through the telescopes, one can also learn about what they are seeing.

"There are talks given at the open houses by undergraduate students here at the UW and by the Seattle Astronomical Society," Larson said. "Although it depends on the weather, you can see a lot of things when it's clear: the Andromeda galaxy, trillions of stars and planets. There's a lot to see."

Reach reporter Ae Jung Yoon at features@thedaily.washington.edu.