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With Astronomy magazine editors David J. Eicher and Michael E. Bakich

Adler Planetarium • Field Museum • Fermilab • Yerkes ObservatoryBACKSTAGE PASS

6 ASTRONOMY • JUNE 2018

BY DAVID J. EICHER

FROM THE EDITOR

Editor David J. Eicher

Art Director LuAnn Williams Belter

EDITORIAL

Managing Editor Kathi Kube

Senior Editors Michael E. Bakich, Richard Talcott

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Adam Frank, John S. Gallagher lll, Daniel W. E. Green, William K.

Hartmann, Paul Hodge, Edward Kolb, Stephen P. Maran, Brian

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s Astronomy

approaches its

45th anniversary,

we’re not only

looking for

ways to continuously bring

you the best coverage of

astronomy in the magazine,

but we’re also creating some

exciting new products we

hope you’ll enjoy.

The latest offering results

from a trip Senior Editor

Michael Bakich and I took to

the Chicagoland area earlier

this year. We visited four stel-

lar astronomical institutions

in and around Chicago, and

filmed several hours of amaz-

ing stuff. Nothing like this

exists in our field, and there

are many exciting things to

share. And video allows us to

describe what’s going on at

these places and share the

excitement in a unique way.

Our new DVD, Astronomy

Backstage Pass: Chicago, takes

you on a behind-the-scenes

tour of the treasures in these

four hallowed places: Adler

Planetarium, the Field

Museum, Fermilab, and

Ye r k e s O b s e r v a t o r y. R e a d

about the basics of what we

saw on p. 44.

The story is just a taste of

what we glimpsed: The three-

hour video shows everything

in spectacular detail. This

product will be exciting for

those who can’t travel to see

the astro sites in Chicago, or

even for those who have been

there — we saw many

treats locked away and not

shown to daily visitors!

You can find details

about the DVD and order a

copy at myscienceshop.com/

BackstageChicago

At Adler, Michael and I

saw the Gemini XII capsule,

the oldest telescope outside of

Europe, a copy of Johannes

Kepler’s most famous work

(inscribed by Kepler!), and the

amazing star theaters of the

first planetarium in the

Western Hemisphere. We also

saw a 1788 telescope made by

William Herschel, the famous

Dearborn refractor, and

books owned by the Herschel

family. We examined at

length Adler’s incredible

antique instrument collec-

tion, one of the finest in the

world, with its numerous

sextants, celestial globes, and

astrolabes.

At the Field Museum, we

explored the inner vault con-

taining one of the greatest

meteorite collections in exis-

tence. We beheld countless

large specimens of Allende,

lunar meteorites larger than

our hands, incredibly rare

pieces of Mars, and some

genuinely scarce fragments

of asteroids that were old,

historic falls.

At Fermilab, the United

States National Accelerator

Lab, we checked out its con-

version from a particle

smasher to chief ly a neutrino

detector, and we spoke with

several key scientists about

the tricky problem of resolv-

ing the nature of dark matter.

And at Yerkes, we basked

in the amazing history of

the institution. We saw the

40-inch refractor, the world’s

largest; the plate vault con-

taining historic images

made by E.E. Barnard and

others; the offices used

by Chandrasekhar and

other greats; and artifacts

belonging to a who’s who of

American astronomy: Hale,

Morgan, Keeler, Adams,

Struve, Hubble, and many

others.

If you love astronomy,

enjoy traveling and visiting

great places, want to see hid-

den gems of astronomy’s

past, or explore the research

and possibilities of future

research, I suggest you check

out this unique DVD. I pre-

dict you will gain hours of

enjoyment from the “back-

stage pass” tour you will

receive from it.

Yo u r s t r u l y,

David J. Eicher

Editor

Your backstage

pass is here

Follow the Dave’s Universe blog:

http://www.Astronomy.com/davesuniverse

Follow Dave Eicher on Twitter: @deicherstar

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