This mural of the Boise skyline at night is on the eighth floor of the Education Building, just beneath the astronomical observatory.

The multi-year project to renovate Boise State's on-campus astronomical observatory is coming to a close, and one of the finishing touches is a wall mural on the Education Building's eighth floor depicting a starry Boise skyline.

The mural currently features two stars in its night sky, representing program coordinator Kaitlyn Austin and Leah Rogers, an alum who works for AmeriCorp on night sky conservation. Students in Boise State's astrophysics program will be invited to add their stars to the growing collection. The mural is based on a design by Robin Matson, a Boise State alum and a member of the student astronomy outreach team, called AstroTAC.

Rachel Clark, a junior studying applied physics and current AstroTAC member, is the lead painter on the project. Painting took several months last fall, with support from other members of the AstroTAC team.

The Boise State observatory will be a hub for astronomy on campus. The space currently holds the department's arsenal of Unistellar eQuinox2 telescopes, which student workers in the AstroTAC program carry all over Idaho to provide hands-on astronomy education in schools. In 2023, Boise State won a $125,000 NASA grant to provide 50 of these telescopes to teachers across the state through the Telescopes for Teachers program. After the observatory renovations are complete in summer 2026, the space will welcome students and community members on their way to gaze through the rooftop telescope, as well as teachers partnered with the outreach program.

The observatory renovations will also make Boise State a nexus for astronomical research in Idaho. Its powerful new telescope will be able to detect exoplanet transits - distant planets briefly eclipsing their host stars - and report those to researchers operating the equipment remotely. An observatory office set up for remote operation is part of the renovation plans.

For the program's director, Professor Brian Jackson, the mural represents an interdisciplinary theme. "Science and art are both creative pursuits," he said. "You can't do science effectively without being able to conceive new ideas. And that process of developing scientific ideas has a lot of similarities to developing artistic work."

Like art, astronomy has the power to awe. Community members are wowed by the deep sky objects Boise State students center in their telescopes. "When I show people [images of the night sky from our telescope], a lot of them are like, 'Oh, that's just a previous picture you got off of Google,'" Clark said. "And that's the kind of moment I think it clicks for them, 'Wow, that's what I'm seeing right now.'"

"One of my favorites is to show them the Whirlpool Galaxy," Clark added. "That's where they get in awe of the vastness of space because that's a galaxy 30 million light years away. And you can see it in a live image on a tablet [from our telescope], even in Boise, Idaho, where there's light pollution."

The AstroTAC outreach program carries telescopes all over Idaho to reveal night sky objects like the Whirlpool Galaxy, pictured here. Photo credit: AstroTAC students.

Boise State astronomy students are working to educate the community about light pollution. Light from cities bounces off of particles in the atmosphere, making Boise's night sky unnaturally bright. The effect drowns out dimmer stars and objects in brightly lit areas on our planet.

In some ways, the mural project is aspirational. As students add their stars to the painting, their light pollution outreach efforts could also make more stars visible in Boise's night sky.

Community members will be invited to the new observatory and receive guided night sky tours from AstroTAC members on the first Friday of every month, weather allowing, following astronomy lectures from space scientists, journalists and policy experts as part of the First Friday Astronomy program. That program will celebrate its 10-year anniversary in fall 2026.

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