UWM students and local residents gathered in front of the Kenwood Interdisciplinary Research Complex on Sunday night to watch a rare lunar eclipse.

The rare eclipse, which happened when the moon was closest to Earth in its orbit, won’t happen again until 2033. The last eclipse of this type was in 1982.

About 180 people came to the UWM campus to watch the eclipse through three telescopes provided by the Manfred Olsen Planetarium. The planetarium hosts stargazing events about twice a month. Typically, staff point out constellations and offer some history behind the names given to them from different cultures, said Jamie Kelling, a planetarium staff member.

Jennifer Duell, a senior studying Linguistics and French, said stargazing was one of the first things she did on campus at UWM when she was a freshman.

“It’s really relaxing and peaceful,” Duell.

On Sunday, the planetarium provided binoculars, as well as the three telescopes, for eclipse watchers to look through. Two of the telescopes were electronic and automatically focused on constellations and celestial objects.

Aaron Hamm, a junior JAMS major, set up his camera to capture pictures of the eclipse. An avid photographer, Hamm said the night sky is one of his favorite subjects for taking pictures. He enjoyed being with a large group of fellow science and astronomy enthusiasts for the eclipse.

“It’s very cool, you don’t get people gathered like this to see some sort of astronomical event very often,” Hamm said.