For as long as I can remember, I've stared into the night sky for about an hour whenever I was awarded free time. My sisters would tease me because I would watch shows on space exploration and all things Earth-related. At one point, my big sister would say to me, "Sharon, are you looking for you brain in the stars again?" I would tell her, "No. My brain's in my head. I'm looking for your brain." As usual, she would throw a stuffed animal at me. When she left, I continued to stare into space and daydream away until I went to sleep.
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Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) guarding the entrance to the planetarium.
Picture taken by Sharon Pearson. |
The opportunity came to me in day camp when my class took a field trip to one of my favorite places in Chicago: the
Adler Planetarium. My favorite thing to do there was to watch the sky show in the historic Sky Theater, where my fellow campers and I were treated to a show about the night sky. I received a star chart and a book on what's in space from the trip.
Several years later, my love for the night sky returned when some of my coworkers and I began tracking the planet Mars, because it was going into retrograde motion. We studies the works of Ptolemy, Copernicus, and Kepler to gain an understanding of their reports on exploring the sky, even driving out into the middle of nowhere in Michigan to get a clear view of the night sky. We've done it on several occasions, even tracking other planets that were visible to the naked eye at night: Venus, Saturn, and Jupiter. Mercury's a bit tough, since it's really close to the Sun.
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Jim Lovell, a Chicago native and one of the astronauts on Apollo 8 and Apollo 13.
Picture taken by Sharon Pearson. |
In recent months, I revisited the Adler Planetarium. This time, I didn't get to see any of the shows on my free pass I checked out from the public library. I lived in the Moon exhibit and the exhibit where all of the planets were located. I saw a replica of the Saturn V rocket, that brought back memories of me living in Houston and visiting the Johnson Space Center. While looking at the Mars, I wished that colonization was a reality on the Red Planet. I took a lot of pictures and wrote out a bunch of notes that helped me pass Astronomy last semester.
The next time I decide to visit the Adler Planetarium, I'm going to get lost in the sky shows, and daydream again.
NASA has some videos and photos that are interesting. I'll watch some of those until I can return to my favorite place on another day.
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The author holding a replica of the Saturn V rocket. The real thing is in Houston.
Picture taken by Sharon Pearson.
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