Address: 1300 S Lake Shore Dr Zipcode: 60605 Phone Number: 312-922-7827 Website: http://www.adlerplanetarium.org You can see stars without hitting your head. Come visit the universe at the Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum, America’s first planetarium. Opened in 1930, the ever-evolving Adler offers amazing opportunities to learn about the universe around us. In the Sky Theater, lean back in a comfy reclining chair and watch as the massive, complex Zeiss planetarium projects a dynamic, changing nighttime sky, storm on Venus, or rapidly forming star cluster on the 68-foot dome overhead. In the StarRider Theater, explore new galaxies in the world’s first interactive computer graphics theater. Programs in these theaters change often, so even if you’ve visited the Adler before, there will be something new to view. Then, in the many exhibits, you can learn to steer by the stars as the ancients did, drive a rover on Mars, learn your weight on Jupiter, take a 3-D tour of the Milky Way, and review the history of space travel. In addition to exhibits that recreate the universe, on a clear night, you can look at the real thing in the Doane Observatory, where a state-of-the-art, 20-inch reflecting telescope is focused on the heavens. The handsome, semi-circular, domed Adler Planetarium sits on a point of land that stretches into Lake Michigan—and which happens to be one of the best locations for getting great photos of Chicago’s skyline.
