Mingo Creek Park Star Parties
 

• What is a star party?  A star party is a gathering of a whole bunch of friendly, intelligent, amateur astronomers; anxious to share their hobby.  The AAAP will have many telescopes set up at the Mingo Creek Park Observatory (Pavilion 10) for the public to view some of the celestial treasures of the night sky.  The AAAP members are happy to answer questions about astronomy, buying a telescope, or protecting our dark sky resource.  The star party will be cancelled in the case of rain, and there will be active observing if there is at least some breaks in the clouds to look through.  For more info about AAAP star parties and Wagman Observatory click here.
   

2005 Mingo Creek Park Observatory Star Party Schedule:

• May 13, 14
• June 10, 11
• July 29, 30
• August 26, 27
• September 9, 10
• October 1
• October 22

Selected 2003 Star Party Summaries and Pictures:

July's Party:

Saturday night made up for the complete fog cover of Friday night, by offering members one of the best evenings of observing at Mingo.  Some members described the evening as:
"It was the best I've seen since Starcruise '02 and not because of our recent crappy weather.  Around midnight....I just sat back and gawked at the clouds of stars and dust arching over us.  It showed that 3-D effect of the nearer, visible stars stretching into the distance to become clouds, like a freeze-frame of snowflakes passing by your car windows as you plunge into a blizzard.....John Diller 
"I haven't seen the Milky-Way locally like that for a long time.  You would have to go to the Star Cruise site, or Oil City to find better skies.....Larry McHenry

July 18 and 19 Pictures
Welcome Pavilion	LaLarry's video astronomy set up	Vern's C-10 Scope
Fog on Friday Night	Members setting up Saturday	Members at Welcome Pavilion

June's Party:

On Friday night we finally had some luck with the skies.  Finally after months of bad weather there was some breaks in the clouds on Friday night.  Many members came and set up their telescopes.

May's Party:

Well mother nature decided to rain on our first two Mingo Creek Park Star Parties.  Unfortunately, there was thick cloud cover for the May 9 and 10 star parties.  However, several members showed up to check out the site, and everyone is very excited about the location.  On Friday evening we also had one gentlemen come up who decided to join the club.  Despite the poor viewing conditions, we were able to take a quick view at the moon with Larry's binocular set up. 

The Mingo Observatory Committee would like to thank everyone for making the extra effort in the nasty weather to come out and "be there" for our first star party at Mingo.  Even though the sky didn't cooperate it was great to see everyone make the drive through the weather and road conditions to get there.  We think it just points out that we have a great group of folks that want this to be a true success.