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[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Chicago Astronomer Star Party

Tuesday - 08 October 2013 - 6:30 pm

The Chicago Astronomer will set-up Telescopes Tuesday, the 8th of October at 6:30 pm by our usual public observation site - just west of the Adler Planetarium building.

The museum campus will be clear of any activities and intrusive ball games, so parking should be good. We will have a nice crescent Moon to enjoy, but Saturn is all but lost for this season after a great summer long display for our fans and guests.

The weather promises to be clear and cool for a autumn night with Scopes, Astronomers and the cosmos.

Be there....you know you want to.

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

An incredible time with fans and friends of the Chicago Astronomer....

Arriving at 6:30 pm, there was not a soul in sight. "Well" I thought...."This will be some solo time with the scope and the stars"...which is a great way to spend an evening. But soon enough, Chicago Astronomer Steve joined in with his Vixen scope and our fans arrived soon after...

We had a great conjunction of Venus and the crescent Moon hanging in the west and we slew over to share the views...

Venus was displaying a nice phase and soon enough, we lost both to Soldier Field...

I slewed around to other objects using the CG-5 mount and Sky-Fi remote control to target other objects in the C11 beast....

We had a couple of nice orbital treats this session. Both the ISs and an Iridium flare were scheduled around the 8pm hour...

A great flyover by the ISS was enjoyed, as was the incredibly bright Iridium flare, Magnitude -8.1..

I was not able to capture the flare decently, but it was a very bright flare up indeed.... ;D

And we go to target other objects, such as the E.T. Cluster, Binaries, globular clusters and even catch Uranus at near opposition and the planet Neptune. I always describe the difference between the two as: Uranus is Green-blue and Neptune is Blue-green.

We discussed why Pluto got knocked out of planetary status with a great group of people, very much interested in urban astronomy and spend more time with the scope...

Long time fans and new friends arrived and stayed for a while...

Steve left and it was just me and support crew member Maria to attend to our guests...

Here, we discuss the conspiracy of...if the Moon landing was faked or what...

...watching videos on my iPad mini. I feel we did, with evidence from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, finally resolving the landing sites. But for others, it was not enough and still maintain that there was no way that humans could traverse such and survive.

Maybe the Chinese will prove it when they get there....!

We continue till about 10pm.....

These next two pics are from Veronica, Javier and Sonia....

It was a great time with new friends and fans at this session, bringing great discussions and sharing the night urban sky.

More time should be spent doing this.....