Arunah Hill Outreach Event at Notchview

On Saturday (Nov. 10), the Arunah Hill Outreach Program held a public star party at Notchview in Windsor, MA. Notchview offers dark skies and a large Visitor Center kept toasty warm by two wood stoves.

The event was confirmed only a week before. With the help of Colin Harrington, a notice was posted to the Berkshire Eagle. The Eagle featured the event with additional text and pictures. Barry Hervieux and I arrived before dusk and were ready to go when the sky darkened. Our host, Jim Caffrey, turned off all outside white light sources, tended the stoves, and set out hot cocoa and snacks. These efforts were complemented by a nice showing of people from the surrounding hill towns. A combination of interesting objects to observe and the warmth of the Visitor Center made for an enjoyable evening.

The featured attraction was a large & bright Comet 17P Holmes, located in Perseus. Views of the comet improved later in the night as it rose in the sky. Mars rose in the east as the event came to a close. This gave us hope for good weather, and a bigger & brighter Mars, at the final Windsor event for 2007, scheduled for December 8th at Notchview.

djc

Nov 10: Scouts Treated to Spectacular Views

Over a dozen Boy Scouts from Ludlow, MA and another handful from Hadley, MA enjoyed camping and spectacular skies on cold, crisp November weekend. They were rewarded with several fine meteors and great views of the autumn sky, with a memorable view of Comet Holmes. Comet Holmes nearly filled a 1 degree field in my 13" Dobsonian!

Other highlights was the view of the Pliades rising, viewed in a tiny Astroscan telescope, and the double star Albireo seen in the historic Gaertner 6" refractor.

The boys also enjoyed the warmth of the wood stove in the hut with temperatures dropping through the twenties.

November 3 work party

Great turnout for the November work day, on a cool (low 40's), windy, and overcast day. The remnents of hurrican Noel threatened heavy rains, but we had no more than low racing clouds.

It was a day to clear up some of the blowdown off the clearing at the top of the hill. With Dan Carnevale and Barry Hervieux bravely manning the chain saws and the rest of us on the ropes we were able to get two dangerous "leaners" down to the ground. Both were 40'+ beech trees, partially rotted, and hung up in nearby trees. Looks like we'll have a few more tall beeches to take down by spring if the winter storms don't get them first.

In addtion to Dan and Barry, thanks to Ray Burk, John Davis, Steve Pielock, Glenn Benscoter, Peter Scherff, and Steven Herzberg for their efforts. We've now got a good pile of firewood stacked for the winter.

We had the stove fired up in the warming hut, it was nice to be able to thaw fingers and break the chill.

We also stored the 24" mirror vertically, which hopefully will solve our mouse issue in the storage shed. Barry also did a little of road maintenance on the way out to hopefully minimize any spring erosion this year.

The distant hillsides still had more than a hint of color, unusually late foliage this year.

-Ed