From Biology to the Stars — My Journey to Slooh

4 days ago
2 min read

EDITOR'S NOTE

This post was written by Charlotte Preuß, a member of Slooh's Gravity Guild — a select group of student ambassadors from around the world who are passionate about astronomy and space exploration. Guild members use Slooh's robotic telescopes to observe, learn, and share their discoveries with the broader community. Charlotte is a biology student at the University of Oldenburg in Germany, where a chance encounter with a telescope sparked a whole new passion. We're thrilled to share her story.

By Charlotte Preuß · Spring 2026 Gravity Guild Member

Hi everyone!

I'm so grateful to be part of the new Gravity Guild. If you had told me a year ago, I never would have believed it! It's amazing that I now have the opportunity to share my excitement and, first of all, my story of how I ended up here ;)

Since I started studying biology in 2023 at the University of Oldenburg, I've been excited to learn more about our planet and beyond. Especially after using my father-in-law's telescope for the first time at the end of 2024, I knew I wanted to dive deeper into astronomy, astrophotography, and astrophysics. That evening was also the first time I captured a photo of a comet (C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–Atlas)). It amazed me that you could even see it with the naked eye!

After that, I decided to enroll in Introduction to Astronomy and Astrophysics at my university. It was my first course beyond the required lectures for my biology bachelor's degree, but I had to wait until the summer semester of 2025 for it to start. Luckily, in the meantime, I was blessed with my first sighting of the northern lights and my excitement grew even more! When the semester finally began, we were introduced to Slooh, and that opened up a whole new world for me.

Looking back, I can honestly say that 2025 was by far my favorite year at university. Astronomy and everything connected to it became a big part of my free time, and Slooh especially became part of my everyday life. Over the past two semesters, I've learned so much, but what fascinates me most is looking up at the night sky and recognizing so many of those wonderful objects I've already captured with Slooh's telescopes.

I'm also really happy to see that I inspired many of my fellow biology students to take Introduction to Astronomy and Astrophysics :)