Chicago is a city of adventure and fun. It is famous for its artistic exhibits and unique museums. The Art Institute of Chicago is a treasure trove of various art forms and artifacts from the past. The Lincoln Park, the Buckingham fountain, the Lincoln Park Zoo, the Millennium Park are some of the most popular sites of tourist attraction. There are three museums namely, the Field Museum, the Museum of Science and Industry and the Adler Museum which have a plethora of treasures, truly mesmerizing.
You can locate Adler Planetarium on Northerly Island. The CTA bus #146 would take you to this destination. It operates from 9:30 am to 4:30 pm. The entire package would cost you $23. The planetarium has numerous exhibits. These give you an insight into the mechanism of the earth, distant galaxies, planets, and the sun. Besides, there is a complete display of the different stages that helped in evolving modern astronomy.
The Star Rider Theatre and the Sky Theatre are its major highlighting exhibits. The former gives you a complete "virtual reality" experience. The latter has a conventional Zeiss projector. Apart from these, the Atwood Sphere, Milky Way Galaxy, Shoot for the Moon, Doane Observatory and bringing heavens to earth are some of the other interesting features of the planetarium.
The Atwood Sphere has a diameter of 15 feet. There are 692 holes on the sphere through which light is passed. This enables you to visualize the arrangement of the brightest stars in the sky. The Milky Way Galaxy shows you the unique facts about our galaxy and helps to identify the Milky Way.
In the Solar System you can observe the facade of Mars, riding on a rover. You can shoot projectiles and see how they form craters etc. The Doane Observatory has a telescope which is the largest ever in Chicago. It can accumulate light several thousand times more than our eyes. You can view the telescope on "Far Out Fridays" from 4:30 pm to 10: pm.
For further information, turn to the following links:
Adler Planetarium on Squido.Com
http://www.squidoo.com/adlerplanetarium
Atwood Sphere on Flicker.Com
http://www.flickr.com/photos/adlerplanetarium/3351681947/in/photostream/
Milky Way Galaxy
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/features.cfm?feature=2388
Solar System
http://www.flickr.com/photos/adlerplanetarium/3351681803/in/photostream/
Doane Observatory
http://onestar-awb.org/starpark/doane-observatory-adler-planetarium
