When you hear someone mention Friday Night Lights at the University of Illinois Springfield, they may not be talking about high school football.
The lights on Friday nights at UIS, at least in the spring and fall, come from above, when the nearly 40-year-old Friday Night Star Parties are held.
Those free parties resume next month at the UIS Observatory on the roof of Brookens Library. They’ll be from 8 to 10 p.m., weather permitting, on April 1, 8, 15, and 22, then resume after school begins in the fall.
John Martin, associate professor of astronomy and physics at UIS, hosts the events, during which the observatory’s telescopes are used to view a number of celestial objects including Jupiter, the moon, the Great Nebula in Orion and other stars and star clusters when they are visible.
The story was reported by The State Journal-Register on March 28, 2016.
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