Schoonover Observatory

Latitude: 40 44' 53.62" N Longitude: 84 05' 49.80" W Elevation: 871 ft.

The Lima Astronomical Society has, in cooperation with the City of Lima Parks and Recreation Dept, operated Schoonover Observatory since its construction in 1964. The observatory was made possible by the generosity of the Thomas R Schoonover Family. Located within Schoonover Park overlooking a lake of the same name, the observatory houses a 14 inch Celestron SCT, meeting area, library and optical shop. The LAS holds its meetings on the first Friday of each month at 8:00pm along with many special events and public observing nights at this location.

Over the years Schoonover Observatory has played host to thousands of visitors from numerous schools, groups and organizations and has served as home base for The Lima Astronomical Society for all of those years.

Shoup Observatory  near Kendrick Woods

Latitude: 40 45' 21.5" N Longitude 84 19' 57.47 W Elevation: 814 ft.

In the spring of 2009 Dr Tony Shoup of The Ohio State University at Lima donated his 11 inch Meade RCX400 telescope and roll-off roof observatory building to the Lima Astronomical Society. Through the cooperation of the Johnny Appleseed Metropolitan Park District, The LAS was granted the use of a dark sky site near the Kendrick Woods Metro Park in western Allen county. As of November 2009 phase one was completed with the moving of the observatory structure to the site. The hole for the pier has been dug to about 4 ft. and steps have been taken to improve the building's security.

December 2009
John Joseph and Scott Bassett have cemented the pier in place. Scott reportedly ascended to the peak of the roof and screwed down the roof cap into every wooden spar along the length of the roof.
There are still a few jobs to be done, such as drilling a hole to enable pulling back on the door latch. Still work to be done, but we are much further along than anyone anticipated.

More info will be available at a later date.