Greg Pluta, manager of the earthquake center on the UI campus, will be in the dome to discuss “Earthquakes Around the Globe and at Home.“ Admission is $1 at the door. November 5

(set your clocks back an hour before you go to bed)

We will have a guest speaker! Dr. Jon Thaler, professor of physics at UIUC, will be our guest this evening to give us a presentation on supernova research. Dr. Thaler has been involved in dark energy surveys in the past as well as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope. Invite a friend and hear Dr. Thaler’s talk. We’ll also do officer elections after the talk.

This is tentative, but we have been contacted by a scout troop out of Barkstall School about doing some real-sky observing at the observatory. Note this is a Thursday evening. Might anyone be interested in working this event? They will confirm a week out- look for a notice on the club list.

The planetarium’s holiday program brightens a normally darkened evening. All tickets are sold at the door. www.parkland.edu/planetarium.

We welcome back astronomer emeritas Jim Kaler for a light-hearted talk on “The Real Zodiac, 2012, and all that!“ It should be interesting! Admission is $1 at the door.

This will be the last open house for the calendar year. Help is appreciated . . . dress warm!

We’ll do the Sesame Street show for the kids and their parents, then have some activities in the lobby. If any CUAS scopes could show up and show people the Moon and Jupiter, it would be appreciated!

The plan is to have a social holiday gathering. Feel free to bring munchies or drinks.

Per tradition, we’ll use the Digistar 4 digital machine look at the sky for the upcoming year.