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[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Chicago Astronomer Telescopes at "Movies in the Park"

26 August 2013

Our next Chicago Astronomer "Movies in the Parks" event will be Monday, the 26th of August 2013 at 7:30 pm. The movie will be "Rudy".

www.chicagoparkdistrict.com/events/Night-Out-Movies-in-the-Parks-at-Northerly-Island1/#.UhognhusiSo

We will set-up telescopes for movie and night sky fans during and after the movie. Weather will be warm and clear skies for some nice urban scope time. We will probably remain till about 10:30 pm.

Be there.

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

A bustling time at the Northerly Island Movie Night and Urban Star Party[/b][/size]

Arriving at 7:30 pm, Chicago Astronomer Paulie was already on-site and the Chicago Astronomer Support Team of Barbara & Maria were ready to go...

The prototype Chicago Astronomer T-Shirts look good.

I made my announcement to the movie crowd that scopes will are ready to show urban delights during and after the movie...

A round of applause later and we are ready to go...

I made my alignments on the Sears Tower with our guests enjoying counting the rivets on the antennae...

And we are ready...

The weather was hot and hazy, but at least it cleared up by dusk, allowing the crew to show Venus and Saturn for our visitors....

Venus displaying a nice more than half phase and Saturn...well into the atmospheric muck, still brought a lot of smiles and amazement.

Saturn was sinking fast and muddy, but still putting on a decent show. I then slewed over to the E.T Star cluster and then to the Binary of the Alcor/Mizar system in the big dipper, explaining the test of the ancients in spotting the "Horse & Rider" and good eyesight...

Paulie was showing the Alberio Binary system and the Andromeda galaxy in his dob and instructing his guests well...

We talk astronomy with our visitors, exo-planets, Comet ISON...yes....even the "Mars as big as the Moon" nonsense.

At 10:30 pm we attended to our last visitor and made new astro friends and met old pals who came down. We had a Total of 78 guests this session on a warm and humid evening at Chicago's front yard...

Good times.

Onward to our next Park District Session....

[Paulie pchris00]

I use my hands a lot when explaining the basic physics of astronomy, don't I? Lots of fun, talking solar system orbital mechanics, properties of stars (Albireo is great for that, though for some reason, most people last night were not noticing the color difference until it was pointed out), and more. Glad I finally made it to a movie in the park. Valparaiso does the same thing, and I show up with telescope when I can, but I need to try to get Valpo Parks to sponsor me on movie nights.

Good fun with Joe, Maria, and Barbara.