Adler Planetarium to visit Du Quoin
'Galaxy Ride' team will visit St. Nicholas Aug. 15
Du Quoin Call
Chicago's famed Adler Planetarium is making a visit to Du Quoin ahead of next month's much-anticipated total solar eclipse.
The world-class planetarium's "Galaxy Ride" team will pay a visit Tuesday, Aug. 15 to St. Nicholas Brewing Company. The event will run from 7:30 to 9 p.m.
The free program will allow the public to observe objects through a telescope, touch a real piece of the moon, speak with an astronomer, learn how eclipses work, explore the speed of light and more.
The Galaxy Ride team also will visit the Science Center of Southern Illinois at Carbondale's University Mall from 1 to 3 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 19.
On the day of the eclipse, Aug. 21, staff from the planetarium will be on hand on the SIU campus to facilitate eclipse-day programming. There also will be a team of astronomers on-site to answer questions and distribute safe solar viewing glasses to a crowd estimated to be upward of 50,000.
The eclipse, which will achieve roughly two and half minutes of totality around 1:21 p.m. that day, will be the first visible from the contiguous United States since 1979, and the first to be visible across the entire continent since 1918. The point of greatest duration in the path of totality will take place just south of Carbondale. Another total solar eclipse in April 2024 will carve a path across the country perpendicular to the path of next month's eclipse, with the intersection of the two paths falling near Carbondale.
The Adler Planetarium, the first such facility to be constructed in America, attracts nearly 570,000 visitors annually. It was constructed in 1930.
