Mingo Creek Park Observatory


				*Mingo Creek Observatory*



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Mingo Creek Park Observatory is located within Beautiful Mingo Creek Park in Washington County, PA. I am very proudly among a number of other individuals on the Mingo Observatory Committee to promote and help oversee the construction, success and maintance of this facility.

The entire project is an effort of the AAAP, Amateur Astronomers Association of Pittsburgh to provide an Obseratory and Planetarium to the residents of all areas, especially to those of the southern portion of Western Pennsylvania. The project and observatory is entirely under the juristion of the AAAP.

"A really nice instrument......"

I always loved BIG Refracting Telescopes; ever since my first look at the moon thru the 12 inch Zeiss Refractor at the Griffith Observatory in 1967, located in Los Angeles, CA.

Years later I had the privlegle to be on the restoration team of the 13 inch Fritz - Clark Refracting telescope located at Allegheny Observatory in 1972.

Famed telescope maker Richard Brandt and I worked on several folded instruments we advertised together in Sky & Telscope Magazine in 1987 and 1988.

So you might say, I just love those Big Lens Telescopes!!!

That's me - Al Paslow (l) & Ed Moss &10 inch scope

Photo taken shortly after assembly, in Oct 2004.

This is a photo of Mingo Creek Park Observatory under construction as it appeared on September 1, 2004. The building as of the time you read this is virtually completed.

The building now is painted an attractive reflective off white color with a moisture proof block sealed under-coat. Both the roofs roll-off, to house a 10 inch refractor telescope on the far left, and eventually a 24 inch Ritchey-Chretien Cassegrain instrument on the right. The building also consists of two ante rooms. a warm-up room, etc as well as a planetarium.

While only the 10 inch refractor is in place at this time, we had our first light on Saturday Oct 4, 2004 and our last star party for the eclipse on Oct 27, 2004.

Close-up of the instrument

This is a 10 inch apeture F-12 Classic Fraunhofer Refracting Telescope. Here's a close-up of this impressive instrument. The tube assembly features a 2 inch rack & pinion focuser, in brass and black wrinkle finish, and a fully baffeled aluminum tube with a dew shield.

The back mounting plate has a "handle" to aid in moving the heavy telescope tube around. A good quality finderscope attached, allows us to view objects much fainter than the un-aided eye can see.

The entire telescope tube assembly weights in at about 75 lbs or so. A home-made Equatorial mount built from steel shafts and pillow block bearings balences the instrument rather well.

The telescope at this time has no drive or setting circles, but is adequate for our viewing purposes at this time. It currently is mounted on a very large three leg tripod.

Here various members from the Mingo Creek Park Observatory Committee get a chance to view the Oct 27, Lunar Eclipse after AAAP members slid back the retractable roof.

This "moveable" roof is quite heavy and still needs a rachet and chain assembly to be frabricated to help close it up.

At the end of the night at least 6 members were required to help "push" this massive roof back in place over the refracing telescope!!!