Header Image: Looking through a telescope at the Adler Planetarium. One question we often get at the Adler is: “I’m a beginner. What’s the best telescope for me?”  The really short answer is, “The best telescope for you is the one you will actually use!” But the long answer can get more complex. So before […]

Have you ever looked up at the night sky and wondered if a particularly bright star was actually a planet? It can be tricky business, but with some helpful tools to equip you, you’ll be identifying planets in no time! Follow this guide to figure out if what you’re looking at is a planet or […]

Every summer, Michelle Larson, President and CEO of the Adler Planetarium, loves to attend a star party (or two!) with her family. Star parties are one of those scenarios where groups of people get together and camp out in a place where the night sky is highly visible. People bring tents, blankets, hot chocolate… and […]

It’s night and you’re looking up into the night sky. What’s the first constellation you see? If you thought to yourself “the Big Dipper,” you’re not alone! In Western culture, it’s often one of the first things we learn to recognize in the night sky as children. For many people in the United States, this […]

Though the Sun sets later and later each evening this month, there are still plenty of fine night-sky sights in May 2019. After sunset, look about 25 degrees above the west-northwest horizon to see the planet Mars. It’s dimmer than first magnitude in brightness, but it’s still bright enough—and colorful enough—to be easily spotted. The […]

Header Photo: Overhead image of Kankakee/Bradley, IL from Far Horizons high-altitude balloon test flight 118 on April 29, 2018. The image was shot from 24.5 kilometers up into the stratosphere. This flight was the first successful NiteLite test flight, proving that mapping light pollution in Chicago would be a possibility. Since the dawn of humanity, […]

The Adler Planetarium’s Doane Observatory has had a bumpy right over the last 12 months. But it’s finally back in working condition. Learn about its journey to recovery!

Though Spring has begun in the Northern Hemisphere, some of the night sky’s brightest stars—usually associated with wintertime—can still be seen this month, April 2019. Look to the southwest during evening twilight, to see a rhombus-shaped pattern of bright stars—like a long, thin, horizontally-stretched-out square in the sky. The top point of the rhombus is […]

When was the last time you saw more than five stars in the night sky? More than ten? Twenty? How about the Milky Way? Ever looked up a vast, hazy band of light that trails from one end of the night sky to the other and felt as though the heavens were reaching down toward […]

The closest “Supermoon,” of the year and glimpses of all the naked-eye-visible planets can be expected during February 2019. About an hour after sunset, the planet Mars is about halfway up in the sky, between the zenith and the southwest horizon. It’s not as bright as some of the wintertime evening stars to its east, […]