As of now, I'm in.

I told Hillary we would be in the vicinity of the U.C., but looking at the map now, I see that we walked right past this park when we went to the Blackhawks game in January, coming down from the CTA Green line at Ashland & Lake. Will be there as early as I can to scope it out, pardon the pun.

Clear Sky Chart looking very good for a change!

Here's a prospective list of targetable objects tonight. List is in rough chronological order for visibility.
What did I forget? What should I take off?

List: 516 To See

Da Moon

Beehive Cluster - Messier 44
(Open Cluster in Cancer)

Saturn
(Planet in Virgo)

---------------------

Hercules Cluster - Messier 13
(Globular Cluster in Hercules)

Messier 92
(Globular Cluster in Hercules)

Owl Cluster - NGC 457
(Open Cluster in Cassiopeia)

Messier 5
(Globular Cluster in Serpens)

Double Cluster - NGC 869
(Open Cluster in Perseus)

Ghost of Jupiter Nebula - NGC 3242
(Planetary Nebula in Hydra)

Double Double - Epsilon2 Lyrae
(Double Star in Lyra)

Messier 10
(Globular Cluster in Ophiuchus)

Messier 39
(Open Cluster in Cygnus)

Ring Nebula - Messier 57
(Planetary Nebula in Lyra)

Coathanger - Collinder 399
(Open Cluster in Vulpecula)

Satellite UARS visibility tonight. Brightest sat I see during our viewing.

Everybody seemed to really enjoy the Draco Dwarf Galaxy (UGC 10822), especially the kids.

A successful Park District/Chicago Astronomer Star Party

(But probably the coldest May session ever....)




Our first visit to the historical Union Park, on Chicago's near West side was a good one, meeting new and old friends and a new Chicago Astronomer.



I thought I would be the first on site at a little after 7:00 pm, but Chicago Astronomers Paulie, Hillary and Barbara and our Park District liaison Heather were already there. Paulie and Hillary were already doing some solar projection when i pulled up...with some pretty decent looking sunspots displayed. I scouted out the park for the best set-up site....but Paulie - with his astronomical eye - already found it and with easy street access to our vehicles. And we set up around him...



Chicago Astronomers Bill and Patrick arrived with scopes, getting their angles and setting up....



My C11 was sans the 60mm finder scope, as a mod to the OTA will take place after this session, installing 90mm guidescope and 60mm finder scope billet aluminum rings - crafted by a master. they will be installed before the next Chicago Astronomer session... ;D

The skies finally....were generous and provided a crystal clear view and soon, the near full Moon rose for enjoyment - with visitors arriving specifically for this session...




Let go back to Patrick and his mighty 9.25" Celestron SCT....



We'll be back...

Saturn was not yet popping out, so it was the Moon that we shared with the public, answering questions and explaining lunar phenomenon...



Near the horizon, I used low power first the 56mm Meade and then the 40mm Celestron on the C11, fitting the lunar sphere nicely in the FOV. I popped in a variable polarizer later on in the session to cut the glare and bring our contrast. Works beautifully.

Back to Patrick...



We'll be back....



Chicago Astronomer fan Larry, made his way from up north to join us and received copies of helpful handouts from Astronomy magazine, including a very cool lunar phase map booklet. I also handed out these to our visitors who had more than a passing interest...



We used the Moon guide to point out various lunar artifacts and highlights, matching views. Lunar ejecta was the most asked about feature this session....






And a couple of treats...

New Chicago Astronomer member Erik, (Midwest) and his wife stopped by to say hi...



He will be bringing his Dob to future Chicago Astronomer events and join the urban crew.

And....Young Mac and his Dad....



Our youngest Chicago Astronomer and bringing his dob...always great to have Mac join us. We are discussing the possible involvement of the Chicago Astronomer with Whitney Young Magnet School in the fall.

Chicago Astronomer fan Tom also stopped by with his camera and took some pics of the session...



We anticipate his images...

Back to Patrick...



Almost ready.

With Saturn now bright enough for targeting, it took center stage as the crew slewed over...




With the mighty 9.25" up and running, Patrick punched in DSO's for the visitors...



I didn't get the opportunity to view all of Patrick's DSO list, but did catch a couple of globular clusters in his neat Axiom eyepiece.

Good friend and Chicago Astronomer fan Gerry stopped to take some pics of the crew...




The evening kept on and we attended to more visitors and took the mandatory shots ...





The temps were colder than I expected, I'd say in the mid 40's, just this side of being uncomfortable, but I thought it was bracing. And...although clear, the observing conditions were not as prime as we thought, with Saturn a bit "softer "in scopes this evening. We broke the site at about 10:00 pm, but took our time, talked shop and reflected on a successful star party session...



Shout out to Support crew member Barbara, who guided our visitors and took pics of the gathering this evening...



There are ore pics coming our way after Gerry, Paulie and Tom process their images. This was a fun one...as most Chicago Astronomer activities are... ;D

The Chicago Astronomer crew for this session...







From left....

Myself, Joe, heather, Hillary, Mac, Paulie, Michael, Patrick, Bill, Larry, Barbara and the two blurs...Gerry and Tom.

What a fun time that was. Stephanie, Ron, his wife Jenna and the girls had a great time! Thanks for welcoming us and making us feel at home with the group. It was a bit chilly and we would have stayed longer otherwise. We were somewhat prepared for the cold but another layer would have helped. Patrick, THANK YOU for the barlow. Anytime you need it back just say the word. Joe, great pics and thanks again for the great information, website and your work with the public. Looking forward to seeing all of you soon. It was very cool to see the different scope and eyepieces in action.

Erik,
Glad you had fun. Next time warmer & more time to chat.

I don't need the Barlow back. It's a telescope warming present. You are welcome and glad it found a good home.

Joe:
1. Bah humbug.
2. Contact UofC Astro about doing additional neighborhood outreach during south side Astro in the Park & to get some UofC students out to see stuff??
3. IIT?

So early. So little sleep. So many thoughts.
p

Despite the unseasonably cold temps, this might have been the most enjoyable star party since the big one late last July. I have a big smile on my face in every picture, and I think that tells the whole story.

Never knowing how the traffic will be coming from Indiana, I always try to leave early, and usually arrive early. On a sunny day like yesterday, it's no big deal, especially when I can do solar observations.

After walking around the park trying to find the best place to set up, it turned to be out right near I parked my car on Ashland. I almost killed some time by shagging fly balls, but by the time I had glove dug out of my trunk, the guys taking batting practice on the adjacent baseball field were packing up. That's was alright, because Joe and Patrick arrived, and Bill not long after them. We observed 6 sunpots on the solar disk, and were delighted when a descending plane crossed in front of the Sun just before wrapping up the solar session.






Patrick getting his first look at el Sol.


Moonrise was at 7:39, and sunset at 8:04. That left us with plenty of twilight while setting up telescopes and waiting for something to observe. Once the Moon was spotted over the skyline, it was down among the trees, and never really got very high. Good positioning of telescopes kept it in view, though, until Saturn stole the show.


<a href="http://s263.photobucket.com/albums/ii157/pchris00/2011-5-16%20Union%20Park/?action=view&current=DSCF0505.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i263.photobucket.com/albums/ii157/pchris00/2011-5-16%20Union%20Park/DSCF0505.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

























A faint Belt of Venus was visible just above the skyline.


I kept looking for Saturn, even with binoculars, but couldn't see any trace of it. One of the little girls attending was looking at a planetarium program on her Ipad, so I asked her where Saturn should be. She looked at pointed to te side of the tree. All of a sudden I could see it! A collaboration found it! Of course as soon as I took my eye off it to slew my Dob, I lost it temporarliy, but picked it up in the finder scope easy enough. Lesson: we are all partners in sharing andthe sky.

I stayed with Luna & Saturn most of the session, but also showed the double star Algeiba, and a few times went with Saturn at low power to catch the conjunction with Porrima.

I bounced around to different telescopes a few times, but mostly as the session was winding down. That's the time for hanging out and talking with friends, and is one of my favorites times during star parties, but by that time Hillary and I were both freezing, so I cut it shorter than Iwould have on a warmer night.








What a great time though, and thanks to everybody for stopping by.





----------------

(Paulie,

Great that we get a solar projection shot from you and the series throughout the night. I think it shows nicely the start of the session.

Slick Moon shot!

They seem a bit foggy. Others that I brought this up with, had fingerprints on the lens - especially on Camera phones....same here? )

Paulie,
NICE moon shot!

I too like the end of the night, but I like it when scopes are up and it's not quite so cold. My secret: TWO pairs of long johns, two pairs of socks (1 wool), and about 4 layers on top. Not cold!

Tom,
Pictures are a PITA here. You get 1 freebie with the photo button in the "Add Tags" toolbar. To do more than that, you need something like a Photobucket account. Photobucket is cool because it automatically spits out BBS IMG code that looks like this:
[_I_MG_]http://i834.photobucket.com/albums/zz265/pkmonaghan/9b98b15a.jpg[_/IMG]

The underscores are in the IMG tag to keep it from posting the picture. if you take that out, the photo will just show up.

Photobucket.com also spits out HTML as well, but that doesn't work here, far as I know. So the way I do it is just with a series of pasting in IMG codes for the photos by cutting and pasting into my post. There may be a faster way somebody can teach you, but that's how I've found to do it.

Great to see you last night. Want to hear most about your scope choices and decision process!

The astrophotography scope is was talking about is the Astro-Tech AT65EDQ

It won Cloudy Nights Reader's Choice 2011

Only $549! Damn! It is a straight astrograph (photog scope) though, so not really made for visual. Maybe you want one that will do both? This is now the full extent of my knowledge on these scopes, so seek further advice!
p

Thanks for the info, sound's good already, I will take a look for sure and keep you posted a bit too.

You are just joking about the two long john's, right?

Tom,

Flash photography has it's place, but I find that time exposures make for much superior natural images. My crew has come to expect the poses...and stop in mid-conversation......and then continue when I'm done.

I like stopping down the flash to perhaps 1/4 power, use a second curtain exposure together with a 4 second total exposure. This way the subjects are softly illuminated and the background comes out nicely.

In time your nice camera will become part of you and will be a great benefit to the Chicago Astronomers in documenting the action.


Also.....

Patrick tried to get us to wear these...



But it didn't catch on.

Mainly because of the lack of the back door option.

Actually, it's something like this!