(Viewed 107 times)

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Sharing the skies with the Deaf and Hard of Hearing at Big Marsh Park
Thursday 13 June 2024

We enjoy our time with this special Chicago Park District's camping program for the Deaf & Hard of Hearing teens. Our last session was at Northerly Island in October....quite chilly but always fun. This time, we were at Big Marsh Park in Chicago's far south side and a favorite location for the Chicago Astronomer. for this private time with telescopes and skylovers  Weather threatened our session, as turbulent conditions were playing around the region and I like to check the College of DuPage radar and track cloud patterns...and it looked like the storms were heading south.

We had a clearing about the time I set-up...and just in time to catch a few minutes of the setting Sun, displaying decent number of Sunspots...

I set-up the 152mm Refractor with full aperture Baader Solar Filter for nice crisp images, sticking with a 42mm 2" eyepiece, producing a low magnitude comfortable field of view of the solar sphere...

The 1/4 Moon was out as well and offered an opportunity for low contrast viewing in daytime skies. I threw on a Variable polarizer to darken the sky...

With an interpreter, I described what we were observing with the Sun and the Moon...and even learned how to sigh them both...



Sun



Moon



At the end of our session, we were treated to a remarkable sunset and it turned out to be a very nice evening together.

Nice teens and anticipate another session soon.

Astro Joe