Since 1973
Our History
The NAA was founded by high school students, and in the five decades since it has opened up as a public organization, has always strived to remain a welcoming, encouraging place for people, of any age, who are new to our hobby.
1972–1975
Spun Off of the High School Club
1972
The Naperville Central High School astronomy club, which had existed on an off and on basis for a number of years, found itself with a number of perhaps overly enthusiastic members. Plans were developed not only to build a telescope for members to share but also an observatory to house it, but the school wouldn’t allow students to undertake either sort of project.
1973
Early in 1973 the students decided that to do the things they wanted to, including gathering to stargaze at night, they would need to form a club outside of the school confines. On Friday, March 16th, the Naperville Astronomical Association was spun off of the high school club. That summer the students built their observatory mostly out of donated and scrounged materials, including a silo dome.
1974
The group’s school sponsor, physics teacher Glen Riley, died suddenly. Riley’s widow, Ruth, donated his collection of astronomy books to the club; these titles became the nucleus of the NAA’s now sizable library. That July, the Northern Lights grew in scope to envelop three quarters of the entire sky, rare for our latitude and unforgettable.
1975
In May of 1975 the club opened up to public membership and public meetings. The days of being exclusively a student club were over.
1976–1989
With Our Own Telescope in Place
1976
The club replaced the loaner telescope that had been in the observatory with a 10-inch reflector that members had built. With our own telescope in place, the observatory was dedicated in the memory of the late Glen Riley. The monthly Focal Plane newsletter replaced an earlier club publication called Skywatch, which sometimes ran to eight or more pages per issue.
1977
The Riley Observatory telescope finally got a clock drive on its home-built mount.
1978
Club membership had grown to 28 individuals and four families, setting its roots firmly in the surrounding community.
1979
The NAA organized a trip for about 70 people to successfully view a total solar eclipse in Canada. A program of regular public open nights was started at the Riley Observatory each Wednesday through the summer.
1980
“Astronomy Day” was a new thing on the national scene in 1980, and a young NAA jumped on board in a big way. On Saturday, April 26th, we filled the Environmental Education Center building at Fullersburg Woods Forest Preserve in Oak Brook with dozens of posters, created by members, with educational information about various topics.
1985
Our group voted to host the North Central Region’s 1985 gathering of the Astronomical League at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. In April we drew hundreds of attendees from eight states.
1986
The NAA had its largest turnout ever for a public observing session. Upwards of three thousand guests visited Blackwell Forest Preserve for the Halley’s Comet viewing session the NAA conducted. A few were a bit disappointed that the comet was a tiny smudge rather than a sky-filling spectacle.
1987
The club took up an offer from the city: we supplied the cable, and the City of Naperville ran a power line to the observatory, ending 14 years of operating the facility on storage batteries.
1989
In 1988 the city notified the club of its new plans to erect buildings in the immediate vicinity of our observatory. In 1989 the NAA decided to build a new observatory on open land offered by the city on the south side of the Springbrook grounds.
1990–1999
The New Riley Observatory
1990
In the spring of 1990 the first Glen D. Riley Observatory became unusable because of the construction going on around it. The new observatory was erected and by year-end nearly finished by a core of dedicated workers. The dome from the original observatory was moved, with the city’s help, to the new building.
1991
The refitted GDRO included a telescope pier designed and built by members, which can raise and lower the entire telescope and mount. The new Riley Observatory saw first light in the early fall of 1991, and the facility was rededicated on October 26th.
1992
Summer public observing was held again that year, after two years without a functioning club observatory.
1993
A Riley Observatory public night which coincided with the peak of the Perseid meteor shower attracted over 250 attendees.
1994
The club organized a trip for members to central Illinois to view the May 1994 annular solar eclipse.
1995
In the fall of 1995 four NAA members took to the back roads of northern Illinois on a search for new observing sites, which by the following fall would add the first two dark sites to the observing locations available to members.
1997
Comet Hale-Bopp put on a spectacular naked-eye show through the first third of 1997, and the NAA greeted it with a public program put on in conjunction with Fermilab. Membership in the NAA crossed the 100 mark for the first time that year.
1998
The club’s regular monthly meetings moved to the Naperville Municipal Center, the NAA’s first website went online, and club membership doubled over the next two years. Public stargazing nights along Naperville’s Riverwalk park started being held as a regular feature.
1999
Our club decided to undertake the major project of adding on to our Riley Observatory, to make more space for club activities and equipment. Little did those of us who were around “back then” know that the undertaking would evolve into the NAA’s biggest project to date.
2000–2007
The NAA’s Biggest Project to Date
2000
February 2000 was the debut month for NAA’s Fundamentals Program that is presented on the third Tuesday of every month. The first program was titled “Getting Oriented to the Night Sky.”
2001
It was discovered that the land that the city had provided us for the Riley Observatory was actually in the river floodway, and there’s no building allowed there. The plans for an observatory addition were completely reworked into an again relocated Riley Observatory and a second, separate observatory building in a new location.
2002
Our club held its first fundraiser auction in 2002, to raise money to build the DuPage Valley Observatory. Astronomy Education Center construction began, with a foundation for the GDRO to be moved to and one for the new DuPage Valley Observatory.
2003
The Mars opposition of August 27, 2003, mistakenly advertised in the media as featuring Mars looking as big as the Moon, drew over 400 visitors to a Riley Observatory public night.
2004
The construction of the DuPage Valley Observatory wrapped up, including moving in the club’s library, which had grown to over 500 titles.
2005
The club started regularly holding Solar Saturday public sun viewing sessions along the Naperville Riverwalk; member Marie Carlson coined the term. The contract between the City of Naperville and the NAA, which makes our arrangement of having our observatories on their land all “above board,” was approved by the Naperville City Council.
2006
We were ready to move the Riley Observatory to our new Astronomy Education Center campus, a few thousand feet away from its previous location. It moved up to the AEC site in June.
2007
The DVO project was tackled with the grinding of the 12½-inch telescope’s mirror and the assembly of the imaging system, and the exhibits were installed in the Riley Observatory front room. On Saturday, October 20, the NAA held the dedication ceremony for our completed Astronomy Education Center. There were approximately one hundred people in attendance.
2008–2019
One of Our Club’s Most Significant Projects
2009
The NAA was in its 35th year of presenting free monthly meeting programs open to the general public. On October 3rd we took part in a day’s worth of public astronomy activity as part of the 2009 International Year of Astronomy, with Waubonsie Valley High School and its planetarium.
2012
In August 2012 a work group of seven met to discuss the practicalities of replacing the Glen D. Riley Observatory’s 10-inch, which had served for 36 years and many thousands of visitors, with a larger telescope under the same dome.
2013
The club’s 40th Anniversary Dinner on March 10th. Member John Abrahamian set to work grinding the 16-inch primary mirror, which he would end up polishing to an amazingly precise figure; member Drew Carhart would design and lead the building of the telescope. It was initially installed in late 2013.
2015
New operators were being trained on the 16-inch.
2017
Our organized trip to see the August 21, 2017 total eclipse of the Sun: about 250 members and their families gathered in a parking lot and grounds of a church in Goreville, IL, and smaller numbers went seeking clear skies in Missouri and Tennessee. In the fall of 2017 the Susan Carhart Outdoor Classroom was constructed to increase the usefulness of the Astronomy Education Center’s lawn area for public outreach.
2020–Today
A Celebration of the Club’s Golden Anniversary
2020
COVID-19 had just been declared first a pandemic, then a public health emergency. The club adapted by moving monthly programs and some observing events to live online streaming.
2021
The August General Meeting was our first program to return to live in-person meetings.
2022
The refitting of our DuPage Valley Observatory, replacing the analog, closed-circuit TV live imaging of celestial objects that we’d been doing for almost 15 years with a new digital, computer-based imaging setup.
2023
The past year was a celebration of the club’s golden anniversary. The larger planned events kicked off in March with an anniversary dinner with special guests. Naperville officials presented NAA with a Mayoral Proclamation honoring the club’s 50th Anniversary. Midway through our 50th year, we had a rededication at our Astronomy Education Center. We wound down 2023 with an NAA Field Trip to the Field Museum.
2024
NAA’s eclipse packet provided members with a choice of three locations along the eclipse path: Poplar Bluff, MO; McLeansboro, IL; and Shelbyville, IN. The weather held and the eclipse was visible at all sites. NAA founding member Larry Jahn passed away on Monday, May 13th.
2025
At the July 15th meeting of the Naperville City Council, that body approved a 20-year renewal of the land use license that provides our Astronomy Education Center a home on the Springbrook water treatment plant grounds.
The Naperville Astronomical Association has become a fixture in the Chicagoland area, and its future is no doubt written in the stars.