September 30, 2025 3:21 PM
Allegheny Observatory
When I was visiting my sister, she told me that she's always surprised by new things that she discovers in her city. I thought about that, and it honestly felt like nothing in Pittsburgh surprises me anymore. It feels like I just know the area.
Last week, one of the local rhythm gamers organized a meetup at the Allegheny Observatory. I had always known about this place, but I've never really been into astronomy so I never thought about checking it out myself. They were hosting free tours of the place, and I figured I'd join mainly so I could hang out with people.
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Google told me that the observatory gets pretty busy so I should arrive early to get a parking spot. So I left way earlier than I thought I needed to, but getting there was a little ridiculous. There was construction on the highway so I had to drive way past my exit and loop back around, and I ended up at the observatory with only a few minutes to spare. And parking was MADNESS. I think there might be fewer than 10 actual parking spots around the building, and it felt like there were at least 30 people in a single tour (so many rhythm gamers showed up!), so people started parking wherever they felt they could without fully blocking anyone from going around the driveway. It was extremely tight just trying to get around the building.
The tour itself was fine enough. Learning about the history of the observatory was interesting. (Pittsburgh used to literally sell time!) There were some people there that worked there, and a bunch of student volunteers who seemed very overwhelmed by the amount of people that showed up to the tour.
As part of the tour, we got to look at Saturn through an old telescope, and then we got to look at Saturn again through a much bigger and newer telescope! It looked exactly the same to me both times. Saturn was just a small speck, and if you looked closely you could see two moons, which were even smaller specks.
_ . -=(_)=- . Yup, that's what it looked like. kinda
I'm not sure if seeing Saturn was supposed to be the main feature of this tour, but for me the absolute highlight of this tour was meeting Diane Turnshek, an astronomy professor at CMU. Someone asked her what the coolest part of her job is and she said with a smile,
I'm world renowned!
I set out on a mission to make the world a darker place.
She gave a TEDx talk ten years ago about light pollution, and since then she's continued to spread awareness of it. How it affects so much more than just being able to see stars in the sky. She told us about her favorite places to look at stars and what books she's currently into. She was so freaking cool, and I felt like I could listen to her talk all day.
After the tour wrapped up, the group of us explored the building a little more and then we just talked outside for a little. Because we were the last tour group of the day, the parking situation had cleared up considerably and so there was a nice calmness to the air. The observatory is such a chill place, and we stayed there until about 12:30am.
I'm really glad that I attended this tour. I guess Pittsburgh still does surprise me sometimes.