On the road: ALCon 2012, Chicago, July 5, 2012

The Longest Day was a great movie, a little dated now but a good WWII film. It was also the summary of yesterday at ALCon, which was all good and executed well but literally the longest day I’ve ever experienced at an amateur astronomy meeting. Our group of some 300 people here at ALCon, the annual meeting of the Astronomical League, began with talks at 8:30 a.m. and returned to our hotel at 1 a.m. I joked that the whole thing was a cover for a University of Chicago sleep deprivation study.

The talks yesterday morning were great. Peggy Walker spoke about astronomy outreach and her association with telescope making great John Dobson, bringing sidewalk astronomy to as many people as possible. Gerry Kocken then wowed the audience with a behind-the-scenes look at his telescope workshop, a volunteer effort that occurs in the Green Bay, Wisconsin, area every Tuesday night. Telescopes come there in need of repair and roll out in pristine condition. This includes an array of instruments like a 10-inch — yes, 10-inch — Alvan Clark refractor.

Astronomy Senior Editor Michael Bakich then presented a science talk on the several ways in which stars die. The illustrated lecture covered planetary nebulae, supernova explosions, and black holes, as well as all manner of associated principles and phenomena. Marni Berendsen of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific afterward described how to grow astronomy clubs, and Chuck Ruehle reported on his “Telescopes to Tanzania” program that is bringing astronomical equipment to this richly interesting African country.

At high noon, the group once again boarded buses and this time headed to Fermilab, the U.S. national accelerator laboratory west of the city, near Batavia. We had an amazing, exclusive, behind-the-scenes, hourslong tour of the lab. It was quite an honor to be at Fermilab, which I hadn’t seen in about 20 years, during the week of the huge announcement regarding the Higgs boson from both Fermilab's Tevatron and Europe's Large Hadron Collider.

We saw the whole place pretty exhaustively, the main building, workshops, control rooms, parts of accelerator rings, and all manner of associated stuff. It was absolutely mind-blowing. On top of this, Jason Steffen, a Kepler telescope scientist, delivered an excellent update summary of the space telescope’s planet hunting. It was terrific.

Then, to top off the particle physics and exoplanets, we saw a play. The Fermilab auditorium hosted Creation’s Birthday, a 2-hour, 15-minute production centered on Edwin Hubble and featuring Albert Einstein, Harlow Shapley, George Hale, Henrietta Leavitt, Cecelia Payne, and others. The story was written and directed by Hasan Padamsee of Cornell University.

Then, by midevening, we went back downtown for a lengthy sailing cruise of Chicago Harbor on the tall ship SS Windy. What fun! We talked astronomy, enjoyed refreshments, watched stars, heard pirate stories and songs, and ate pizza. Wow. An incredible day! More to come tomorrow, and until then, be sure to check out all of the images from ALCon in our Reader Photo Gallery.

Related blog: ALCon 2012, Chicago, July 4, 2012