The star/moon party on the rooftop of Monona Terrace Convention Center has been an essential event for MAS for nearly 30 years now. How did it get started?

The origins of the Moon Over Monona Event go back to October 1998 when the American Astronomical Society’s Division of Planetary Sciences (AAS-DPS) held its annual convention in Madison. DPS is a Big Deal, attracting scientists from all over the world for the planetary science community’s biggest event. Hosting DPS in Madison was seen as a huge opportunity for the UW Madison’s relevant departments (Space Sciences and Engineering Center, and, to a lesser degree, Astronomy).

The venue for the big convention was the shiny new Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Monona Terrace Convention Center. Monona Terrace had just opened the previous fall and had been one of the biggest news stories in Madison for the previous decade. Nearly everything about it was controversial – the design (how much of it was really designed by Wright?), its cost to taxpayers, and the land-acquisition necessary to put it in a prime location on Lake Monona, just SE of the Capitol. Convention Center staff were keen to throw an event that would be popular with the public.

To help make the DPS convention more successful, the UW-based organizers wanted to make sure there would be events open to the public. The scientists would need to present a strong public-facing effort to engage the local populace. One of the ways they did this was to enlist the partnership of the Madison Astronomical Society. SSEC professor Sanjay Limaye and staffer Rosalyn Pertzborn created an array of events that would be open to the public. One of the exhibits prepared by the organizers featured scale models of two cutting-edge spacecraft: Mars Pathfinder and Sojourner, which had become the first celebrity mission of the internet age the year before. Limaye also reached out to MAS for help.

The dates available to do this event were limited by the DPS calendar, which unfortunately was very close to new moon. So the moon was out as a target, but the event was on! Jupiter was brilliant and Saturn came up just an hour or so later. We could do this! Tim Ellestad worked with Convention Center event staff to make it happen.

The first Monona Terrace/MAS star party was held on October 15, 1998 and was a huge success. More importantly, the Monona Terrace event staff loved it and recognized that it could potentially be a regular event to engage the public. They asked if we could do it again in 1999 (of course we would). Monona Terrace event coordinator Sharon Neylon came up with the “Moon Over Monona Terrace” moniker, and a yearly tradition and strong partnership was born. MAS has never looked back.

In the “more than you wanted to know” category, here are the stats:
Since MAS and Monona Terrace Convention Center initiated this event at the 1998 DPS convention in Madison, October 2025 was the 33rd such event we’ve attempted:

• The first event, on 10/15/1998, was not called Moon Over Monona Terrace since the event which inspired it (the AAS DPS convention) took place near new moon. Instead, Jupiter and Saturn were the stars of the show. It was just called “Public Star Party” on the rooftop, sponsored by the MAS.
• Of these 33 events, only 9 have been canceled due to adverse weather and/or the lack of a backup date. 
• For five years, we experimented with doing MOMT twice annually, once in the fall and again in the spring (2014-2018 inclusive).
• 3 events were moved to the backup date (and attendance suffered at all three)
• 3 events were moved to inside spaces in MT and MAS did indoor activities instead of star gazing.
• 2 events were held virtually due to COVID restrictions (2020 and 2021)
• Our best attended events were 2011 (over 2000 attendees), April 2016 (1700 attendees), and 2025 (1329 attendees)

(Posted by John Rummel, September, 2025)

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