A short blog today about yesterday, Friday, July 6, because this is going to be another monstrously busy day. Yesterday was too — the pace of this ALCon Chicago meeting is frenetic and filled with numerous, nonstop action! Yesterday, the talks started out with me delivering my talk on the latest advances in astronomy, planetary science, and cosmology, “Astronomy’s new frontier,” to a large crowd that had graciously arrived early after a short night of sleep the night before. You can see a video version of my talk in the Dave's universe videos section. I then had to retreat from the other talks simply to have time to write and catch up on the blogs and photos!

The group then loaded into three large buses and made the trip from Chicago northward to Williams Bay, Wisconsin, to receive a thorough tour of Yerkes Observatory. I’ve been to Yerkes many times over the years, as it is so important to the history of astronomy and our “local” major observatory as Milwaukee residents, but it’s always special to see. The place where so many important astronomers made huge contributions, the famous (and world’s largest) 40-inch refractor, and the many artifacts there always stun and amaze visitors. The spirit of Barnard, Hale, Burnham, Hubble, Einstein, Chandrasekhar, and others looms very large here.

After a multi-hour, detailed stay in Williams Bay, we then traveled southward back to the city to the Ravinia music fair site to hear terrific classical music under the stars. What a marvelous and elegant day it was.

Today, Saturday, more talks await and then setting up for the banquet dinner and for the premier of the Astronomy Magazine Blues Band, which will play this afternoon and tonight for the 300 astronomers, who are about to go into party mode. Rock on!

Related blogs:
ALCon 2012, Chicago, July 5, 2012
ALCon 2012, Chicago, July 4, 2012