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[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

The Second Chicago Park District and Chicago Astronomer joint Star Party

06 April 2011

tinyurl.com/3h2ugcc

Our second Nature Oasis Star Party session will be on Wednesday, the 6th of April 2011 at Winnemac Park on Chicago's far north side: 5001 North Leavitt Street Chicago, IL 60625

The session kicks off at 8:00 pm, but I'll be on-site earlier to set-up and chat with our visitors. Saturn will be a treat as well as other late winter/early spring targets.

Our first session in March, ( astronomer.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=gotopost&board=Annoucements&thread=3040&post=11494 ) was a success and we attended close to 75 park visitors - making many new friends and fans of inner city urban astronomy.

If in the area, stop by and the share skies in Winnemac Park on Wednesday...

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Scrubbed...!

Tomorrow's second CPD & Chicago Astronomer joint session has been cancelled due to weather conditions.

Although it will be warmer, (finally!), we will be experiencing heavy cloud cover and have postponed the session till early next week - shooting for Tuesday the 12th of April.

Stay tuned for confirmation updates.

So is the varied spring weather astronomers dodge...

[broadway69]

It appears I picked the wrong season to purchase a telescope.

Good thing my son also got a microscope on his birthday!

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Chicago Astronomer Bill and I had a brief session this evening to test out my newer 90mm refractor mod project.

Details later in another post soon....but the weather was just horrible.

Soon Broadway, soon.

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

The second joint Park District/Chicago Astronomer joint session, (postponed from last Tuesday due to cloudy skies), is a solid go for

Tuesday, the 12th of April at Winnemac Park at 8:00 pm...

The weather looks beautiful and very clear for a session under the stars.

I will be on-site by 7:00 pm to set-up and prep.

If in the area or free....stop by and share the skies from the northside of Chicago.

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

A Great Session on Chicago's North Side....

The Second joint Chicago Park District/ Nature Oasis & Chicago Astronomer Star Party at Winnemac Park was a good one...a very good one.

Never having been to this park, I was unsure on where to set-up - and following our Park Dist. coordinator's instructions, entered the park with flashers on and found a nook to park and wait. Looking around in the meantime, I noticed a lot of people walking their dogs and jogging about. To my right was a football practice and the skies were clear.

Our Park Coordinator Heather arrived soon and we selected a good patch of ground, I unloaded the equipment and parked in a nearby lot. Almost immediately, park visitors asked if there was a special astronomical event going on and started to gather. It was still light out and it takes awhile to set-up - and invited our visitors to return in a short while. And they did.

The hooded" astro monk" shown above is fellow astronomer Rick. Very cool guy who has a 14" SCT and has been joining our crew from time to time at our sessions. Last year he made me some laser cut Bahtinov masks of various sizes - very cool and useful. Throughout the session, I would be tugged away by visitors in discussion or assisting others who brought their own telescopes and Rick took it upon himself to work the C11 for our visitors. I trust his ability and thank him for his participation.

It was a cool evening and I feared dew problems with the C11, so I attached the E.D.S, (Extended Dew Shield), and felt it warm the corrector plate within seconds. I am also using a red strobe light, as seen above. Two reasons. First, to draw attention and establish presence, especially in a darkened area, but also to create awareness of the C11 and not bump into it. Powered by my 12v powerpack, it's not obtrusive at all.

Chicago Astronomers Bill and Steve also made the trip and joined me. Steve bringing his 4" Refractor and Bill his newer reflector with bino viewer. Great to have them in the session and now we can target different objects.

And so we start out with a great lunar tour, being close the 3/4s and a wonderful terminator, couldn't have asked for a better Moon...

And we continue with the moon with Saturn making it's way higher, but I set up in a poor location to catch it, as a tree was directly in my way. Rick and another visitor helped me move the entire C11 beast to a better spot just a few feet away and then started our Saturn viewing...which was pretty good this evening. Being still low to the horizon, I started out with a 40mm eyepiece, bringing a modest 70x magnification.

Now, Saturn always brings amazement and awe...and we always hear comments of "You put a sticker on the lens!", "Oh my God!" or other exclamations. I'm rather impressed with the planet myself....but conditions were not yet optimal to catch the Saturnian serpentine storm. Maybe later.

But we continue....

A fellow, seeing the Star Party flyer's days before, was excited to join us this evening, bringing along his 50mm refractor...

C.A.Steve targeted the Orion Nebula for abit...

...but now setting earlier each night, it was only for a short time. (Notice Steve's iPad hanging from his scope, showing a Saturn animation. Quite cool.

Friends and fans of the Chicago Astronomers stopped by to share in the evening...

The session was abuzz with activity with barely a moment of reflection, talking astronomy, joking around and making new friends....

C.A. Bill suggested I whip out the plansisphere and Moon map and we used his table to lay them out...

..which was a great idea.

And the evening progressed....

Using two green 50mW lasers, we point out the interesting targets of the evening for our visitors...

I remembered to charge up the MP3 player and had our ethereal music playing throughout the evening. Our visitors commented on how it created the perfect environment. (In public observation sessions, it's just not about pointing a scope to a planet, but developing the ambiance of something special. It pays out big.)

A lot of dogs at this session and owners tied them up away from the scopes for the most part, but I am watchful for those who bring them up to the scopes. I'm considering a policy of "No Smoking-No Dogs around scopes".

Brian, a new Chicago Astronomer member "broadway69", came by with his son and reflector telescope...

C.A. Bill assisted him tuning up his scope and now the cosmos is at their call whenever they want. (You can see just a hint of the Big Dipper behind us.)

Chicago Astronomer member Kyle, also stopped by this evening...

...and brought along his posse. Kyle also is the owner of a new 8" SCT and I am anxious for him to bring it to our sessions soon.

The time was now approaching 10:00pm, the crowds thinned out and we packed up. It was a very successful session and I have run out of business cards...save for maybe five left, they are all gone, I mean thousands over the years. Time for some more, updated with our new logo...

But one last pic before we break site...

A special thank you to Barbara, (second from right), as part of our Chicago Astronomer Support crew, taking pictures, guiding visitors and making the session a better one for us. (Don't know why it's blurred... )

Good star party sessions go by quickly, and this one went by much too fast. Visitors who observed through our telescopes called friends and girlfriends to get right over and join in...which they did. I did not have the opportunity to slew to other objects this evening, splitting double stars, star clusters etc... and that's ok. It was a Lunar/Saturn session all the way...as I suspect it will be for the rest of the warm weather season.

Near the end of the session, I placed 2" 26mm and 2x barlow to catch Saturn in the C11...making it a 13mm and 215x magnification. I could not see that storm, but it was a nice view. We will wait till it gets a bit warmer and during a private session and see if i can image it.

On to the next joint session at Union Park in May!

[Paulie pchris00]

Wow, what a great session!

As for the Saturn storm, I suspect that imaging might be the only way to catch it. I went out to Conway Observatory about 8:30 the same night (Tuesday), and tried to visually sight the storm with the 16" telescope, with no luck. The conditions were not perfect, but with the huge scope, 2" eyepieces, and different colored filters at my disposal, I still came up with no sighting of the storm, even though I knew the transit time was 9:53 PM CDST.

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Paulie,

It was indeed a beautiful night with a great crowd of visitors.

On Saturn...

In the C11, I did observe the ring transit, planetary banding and three Satellites. Titan, Iapetus and Rhea...pointing them out to observers...

I didn't have the time to utilize filtering.