Observatory to celebrate 10 years
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It’s going to take more than a meteor shower to dampen this party.
The Mingo Creek Park Observatory will celebrate its 10th anniversary following the Perseid Meteor Shower viewings it hosts this week.
Today and Saturday, members of Amateur Astronomers Association of Pittsburgh will host stargazers in their 10-acre space at the park. Star clusters, nebulae, planets and galaxies are on the viewing checklist.
“The rings of Saturn and the planet itself will be the show stopper,” said observatory director Nick Martch, “and with a yellow filter, we’ll be able to catch some of the planet’s cloud formations, and the planet’s moons. Otherwise, we’ll be seeing a golden-brown planet that is just spectacular.”
Clouds and some humidity may provide a bit of haze in the evening sky, but that shouldn’t be a problem, according to Martch.
“Once again, we have no moon, which means it won’t light up that haze. It should be pretty clear,” he said.
There may be some remnants of the meteor shower early in the evening, and a very bright spot on the agenda for early arrivals.
“At 5:30 both nights, if it’s clear, we’ll be opening up the dome telescopes to prepare for safe solar viewing,” Martch said.
“With different filters we can catch some filaments snapping off of the sun; through the white light filter, you can see sunspots. We’ll be able to see a lot of different aspects of the sun from most ends of our visible spectrum,” he said.
The 34-year member of AAAP said the 10-year anniversary is celebrating a space for Southwestern Pennsylvania stargazers.
“People north of Pittsburgh have had Wagman Observatory (since 1987), and 10 years ago, we were looking to serve all surrounding communities of Pittsburgh,” Martch said.
There is no charge to visit and observe, but donations are welcome. First-timers are encouraged to bring telescopes, which Martch said will be the primary method of viewing stellar phenomena.
“We want a majority of viewing to be done through amateur scopes. It’s to show really what you can do with that kind of setup at home,” he said.
“And come visit us for our regular Friday star watch parties this weekend or in the future. We still have a couple of weeks before Friday night football lights start obscuring the sky.”