The nearly-full moon hung high and luminous in the sky, as a group of Wareham High School students gathered beneath its light to gaze at the heavens Thursday night.

The students belong to the new Astronomy Club at the High School, led by science teacher Alfonso Navarro. Navarro began the club this year, after several interested students approached him about being unable to take his astronomy class, due to scheduling conflicts.

Thursday night’s gathering in the High School parking lot was the first of monthly Astronomy Nights with the club. Navarro said he thought the students had a good time, and were pleased they wanted to learn how to use the telescopes he brought with him.

“It was good to see them working with the telescopes, and they were using the sky maps I was sharing with them,” Navarro said.

In addition to the moon, students also used a very large, high-powered telescope to view a tiny, diamond-bright Saturn, and the fuzzy Ring nebula. A few students, like senior Samantha King, even used their cell phones to take pictures of the moon through the telescope.

Navarro said he hoped the students would learn about even more celestial bodies in the coming months, as well as learn how to find them by themselves in the night sky. In addition to the two larger telescopes Navarro owns, the students will be able to use six smaller telescopes obtained through a Cape Cod Five Savings Bank grant.

“I am going to pick a slightly better spot with less light, so it will be easier to find [things],” Navarro said. “There should still be a couple bright globular clusters they can see, the Andromeda galaxy, the Ring nebula. Saturn may still be up next month.”

Navarro also said the students may learn celestial navigation, or navigating one’s way using the stars, and even help put together a small presentation or children’s book for students in the elementary and middle schools.

“Maybe we could have high school astronomy night, and middle school and elementary school astronomy night, and have the students leading the parents as guides,” Navarro said. “[The high schoolers] seem very enthusiastic about it.”