Clear Nights Continue!

Thanksgiving weekend provided some seasonably warm and clear nights for some good observing opportunities. Of course, seasonable warm on Arunah in late November means survivable, with overnight lows in the upper 20's.

Friday Nov 25 saw a small crowd on the hill to get in some great views of setting Summer objects like the ring and the veil, all of the autumn stunners like the great Andromeda galaxy, the double cluster, and M-15 globular, plus a chance to catch Orion rising over the distant hills.

Kevin's big scope and the club 17.5" dob delivered great views on a night that became increasingly transparent as the afternoon's high thin clouds dissolved away.

Big Jupiter high in the south proved stunning, as we all watched for the approaching Europe transit and shadow crossing.

Some stray meteors keep things lively. Barry, Kevin, Matt, and Ben L and the Amherst College students and I enjoyed a pleasant night on the hill.

A Busy November Weekend

Seasonably mild temperatures and clears skies brought out lots of activity on the hill. On Firday night Ben L from Amherst College brought a group of students up to the hill, and reported "it was stunning and incredible... most of us hadn't seen a view like that before. One of the international students was particularly stunned. It was amazing."

On Saturday Ray Burk and I trimmed back some fallen trees from along the driveway. I also double checked the shower lines to make sure everything was drained.

Scott Masey and Joe Zuraw brought a group of scouts up for a late autumn camping experience. The scouts cleaned up the Towers Trail as a service project. Thanks guys!

On Sunday Joe fired up the tractor and added some gravel to fix some ruts on the driveway. The road is now in good shape, but as always, proceed with caution and go slow up the hill. Wet leaves can conceal rocks and ruts.

Barry Hervieux was up on Saturday night to move his camper to its winter home.

With a good forecast for Thanksgiving weekend, hopefully we are not through the 2011 observing season yet!

Autumn to Winter back to Autumn

A freak October storm dumped over 30 inches of snow on Arunah Hill on October 29, just 5 days after a more typical October storm put down 3 or 4 wet inches of white. Kevin Collins reports that by Sunday, Nov 6, things were pretty much back to "normal" November conditions of the hill. The storm spared the hill much of the blow-down damage experienced by the valleys in Western Massachusetts and Connecticut.

The road is passible, though please use caution!

-Ed

Arunah Hill Days 2011

The return of the RUM, a clear Friday night of observing, great speakers, and our most successful rocket launches ever highlighted AH Days 2011. Even Saturday night wasn't a total washout, with nice views of Jupiter and the moon despite some "soupy" skies.

Gary Cislak was presented with the first "Curt Schilling Award" for meritorious service in so many ways: tractors, gravel, mowing, rockets, and medical emergencies. Thanks Gary!

Thanks to all who made this a memorable event.

Details to follow.

Arunah Hill Survives Irene

I went up hill tonight to check on things. Everything came through just fine with the exception of some moderate to severe washouts along the driveway. The worst part is where the road takes the big left hand turn past the brook. Fortunately, we have a good supply of gravel well positions and the tractor should make short work of the road repair in plenty of time for Arunah Hill Days.

Looks like Irene was exclusively a rain event for the hill... no damage at all to any of the buildings, and very little "blow down" around the clearing. The porto-potties are fine, and the new roof on the shower building came through its first tropical storm with no problem at all.


The hill is still pretty saturated, especially in the usual spots, like below the telescope storage shed. The berm we put in a few years ago seemed to do its job, the clearing and the top of the driveway came through it all in pretty good shape. I'm expected with the great forecast for the week we'll be in great shape for Arunah Hill Days.

On the way to the hill the Westfield River was flowing fast and muddy, but was below flood stage. Once I got the the Knightville Dam, it wasn't too hard to figure out why... The dam is impounding massive amounts of water that would have otherwise inundated Westfield and Agawam.
Click on pictures to view at full size

I'll be up on the hill Wednesday and Thursday after work. Hopefully if the mowing and gravel repair is done in time, we'll be setting up the RUM and enjoying some dark skies on Thursday night!

Quite a Busy Week

It was a hell of an astronomical week for me. No, I didn't win a ribbon at Stellafane for my tri-shiefspiegler (I didn't get around to making it again this year), and I didn't see a spectacular aurora (even if they did reach this far south this week, I saw mostly cloud bottoms). What I did was participate in a star party with a background sound track of John Williams and the Boston Pops playing live at Tanglewood (thanks Alan Rifkin for organizing this) on Tuesday, showed off Saturn and the quarter moon to a great group of kids at the Enfield CT library on Friday night, and got to watch Matt Paine and Joe Zuraw fabricate a roof on the new Showers.

Matt and Joe were ably assisted a "ground crew" of Ray Burk and Peter Scherff. Meanwhile, Kevin Collins and Tom Walker rebuilt the collimation setup on the 18" Dobsonian.

Barry Hervieux and I mowed, and we managed to clean the tube of the Gaertner.

Lots more work to do over the next few weeks as we approach Arunah Hill Day. Thanks to all for their efforts!

Photo by Kevin Collins.

Gem of the Berkshires

Troop 550 and Crew 550 had a great time on the mountain last week. An Indigo Bunting has taken up house keeping in the tree tops around the clearing and we were able to capture it with the Geartner. The new locking diagonal that Bruce made for the telescope will allow the use of the large eye pieces.

The scouts conducted a orienteering course across the clearing and several pioneering projects took shape. One, a Cranson kitchen, is still set up for use behind the pavilion. We also conducted CPR and First Aid certification and had numerous nature walks on the trails. Tuesday night was music night featuring the Bruce and Joe show with special guests. Wednesday was a canoe trip on the Deerfield river and movies in the Pavilion in the evening.

There was general agreement that it was better than any BSA summer camp.

The new showers were well received. Everyone used them whether they wanted to or not. Even with a three day hike on the Appalachian Trail, I managed three long showers. When the week was over we had used only one of the three tanks. Suffice to say we have built plenty of capacity into the system.

I was up on the hill today removing one last car load of camp equipment. I also cut and installed the rafters for the shower house. All that is left is the roof. We need to decide what kind of roof we want. It could be pine boards and shingles or metal.

It is time to put some work into the roadway. At the next work weekend I will start spreading lime stone and gravel.

Well that's all the news from the Mountain. All the girls, boys and parents of troop and crew 550 say thank you Arunah hill it is truly one of the gems of the Berkshires.

Joe

Showers in the Forecast

Joe Zuraw and several Scout Leaders have been busy on the hill, ably assisted by the regular first Saturday work crew. Working showers will soon be on the hill. As of July 5, we have a 12x12 slab poured for the foundation to the shower house, and a 7 x12 slab on the northeast end of the pavilion to hold the water tanks. A structure has been completed for the tanks, and the tanks have undergone a thorough cleaning, thanks to scout leaders Mike and Doug, and Joe Z's daughters.

Many thanks to Joe and the Saturday crew: Ray Burk, Peter Scherff, Tom Walker, Barry Hervieux, newcomer Will from Arlington (last name?) who helped me keep the cement flowing, and to DeeDee Pielock, Dan Carnevale, and Jonathan Klinkowski who mowed and did other things around the hill.

It was also nice seeing Bob Osgood now back on his feet and getting around pretty well.

I'm not sure Will knew what he was in for when Barry invited him up to Arunah to enjoy dark skies, but we sure appreciate his hard work. At least he had some great views of the summer Milky Way for his efforts.

Joe reports that the showers will be operational for the Boy Scouts camp out starting July 15.

-Ed

Memorial Day Feast

The feast is Saturday, May 28, 2011 at 6 PM. Rocket building and GPS Scavenger Hunts begin around 1 PM.

So far:

Ed F - Chicken and Rice, paper products, rockets, glue, paint, launch pad(s)
Ray Burk - Chips (and dip?), soda, ice
Kevin Collins - homemade Polish Dill Pickles and a cooler full of sodas and ice. I will have the grill as well in case we have any charcoal issues
Jonathan Klinkowski - Burgers
Barry H - Chocolate Chip Cookies
Crystal -Tabouli salad, chopped meat for burgers, other salads like potatoe and a lemon crumb cake.

A Cloudly Day

I went up to Arunah Hill today (Sunday, May 22) to drop off my camper and did a little bit of mowing while I was there. It was cloudy and cool but the black flies were feasting on me anyway. The road was in pretty good shape, even with all the rain we have had. We received our delivery of limestone. It was left in the small clearing after the stream crossing. The grass is growing fast with all the wet weather. It was hard to tell that any mowing was done just two weeks ago. The clubhouse seemed to be free of flies and wasps when I checked on the weather station. I guess I will see everyone next weekend for our potluck gathering. Let's hope the forecast improves and we can get some observing in too.

-Barry

Hilltown Festival Music, Meteorites, and solar system to scale

Peter Sherff and I, ably assisted by our talented wives Kendra and Cathy, had a Arunah Hill booth at the Hilltown Festival at the Cummington Fairgrounds.

The two nearby stages filled the day with great music as we talked to a steady stream of hilltown folks... many who knew all about our hill.

Peter gave out meteorites to kids of all ages, in his continuing quest to give everyone in Western Massachusetts their own piece of the sky.

Peter and I also set up a scale model solar system walk, with the sun shrunken down to volleyball size. The planets were marked across the fairgrounds with flags and scale model planets. Earth was a tiny bead thirty paces away... Jupiter a fishing float over 100 years away. Uranus was at the far end of the parking lot, over 1/4 mile distant, so we had to "double back" to place Neptune.

Neither Peter or I had the drive to continue another 300 yards to place tiny Pluto.

A half dozen families took in the solar system up to Saturn, and one or two may have even made it to Uranus.

Rains held off to late afternoon, we packed up under a moderate rain and enjoyed the final music acts of the day under the stage tents.

Thanks to Kendra and Cathy!

Black Fly Work Day

A good crew turned out on a mostly pleasant but occasionally threatening skies, braving the black flies to get some work done on the hill.

Thanks to Anne and the crew from Mass Highways, we walked the gravel road and explored ideas for improving drainage. Anne made several good suggestions that we'll try to implement over the next few months. Thanks to Kevin Collins for leading this effort.

Jonathan Klinkowski and Tom Walker spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning out our existing culverts best they could given the tools at hand. They report our culverts were pretty well filled in with debris from over the years, and they were able to improve flow considerably though more work is needed.

Barry Hervieux and Tom wrangled mowers around the pavilion, Club House, Gaertner, and upper picnic area.a The grass has really exploded in just a few weeks, and mowing is a necessary job, though thankless hard work with our ancient mowers.

Ray Burk, Peter Scherff and I cleared a beech and birch tree from the clearing.

Dan Carnevale had to postpone the planned Notchview observing due to clouds. Our next event will be the Hilltown Festival at the Cummington Fairgrounds on Saturday, May 14. Should be a fun event. I'm already on the lookout for planets for our "Scale Model Solar System Walk".

-Ed

Bald Eagles, Bolides, and Transparent Skies

April exited in grand style on Arunah Hill. Barry Hervieux was the first on the hill, an was treated to an extraordinary site: A very large adult bald eagle lording over Arunah Hill.



By sunset, about a dozen of us were on the hill for the 5A's star party that Kevin Collins organized. The weather was perfect for star gazing: transparent dry skies, no wind, and temperatures slowly dropping from the fifties into the mid thirties.

Several large dobsonians went into action early, catching Saturn in the late twilight. As the sky darkened, M-3 filled up some wide-field eyepieces, a terrific globular cluster that resolves to the core. M-3 caused a bit of discussion of our high school Latin (2 weeks worth for me) as we tried different pronunciations of Canes Venatici. Once the sky fully darkened, galaxies dominated, usually in multiples. The "Leo Trio", the Whirlpool with the companion bridge revealed, M-84 & M-86 surrounded by tiny faint smudges caused lots of scurrying between scopes.

The Sombrero stood up to high magnification and had us all braving the heights of Kevin's ladder. Thanks Jonathan for "spotting". The rules were if you feel off the ladder you had to fall into the rocks, not Kevin's telescope.

The beautiful skies also revealed a dazzling bolide, exploding as it headed downward in the southeastern sky, racing out of Bootes. Someone refered to the -8 spectacle as a "Arcturide". A space station pass gave us all a chance to wave at "local" astronaut Cadie Coleman.

Before I left the hill, a view of the Beehive Cluster in Barry's little 5" rich field scope showed you don't always need big glass to see some wonderful site on a clear dark night on Arunah Hill.

And by the way... if you bet there would still be snow on Arunah Hill in May this year... you won! There isn't much left, it it may be gone by this afternoon, but there is a tiny patch of snow hanging on in a shady spot on our lower parking.

NOTE: Pictures to follow, once I get them emailed from Kevin and Barry.

-Ed

Spring on the Hill... Almost

Joe Zuraw and I went up to the hill yesterday afternoon to survey the run-off and have a look at the culvert situation. The good news is the culvert by the lower lot turns out to be in pretty good shape... only the connector between the two halves of the culverts seem to be compromised. Joe promised that it would be an easy fix with some wire and fresh cement. We'll take care of that at the May work day.

Looks like the work day is going to be a busy one, with gravel and culvert work on the roads, and some chainsaw work at the edge of the clearing, and the usual trail clearing.

Despite near 60 degree weather down in the valley, Arunah was a chilly 38 degrees (yes, the weather station is doing it's job), and there were still occasional piles of snow, and even a few snowflakes in the air. I was able to carefully drive my little two wheel drive Matrix up to the top of the soggy hill, though the drive is pretty rutted in spots.

Ray Burk had visited the hill earlier in the day and reported similar conditions.

I look forward to the May work day, with the Hilltown Festival and the Memorial Day weekend pot luck soon behind.

-Ed

NEAF

Thanks to the hard work and generosity of Peter Scherff, Arunah Hill again had a popular booth at the NEAF show this past weekend. Peter, Kendra, Dan C, and various others talked to hundreds of amateur astronomers and dozens of slightly overwhelmed newbies over the two days of the show, with Peter giving away over one thousand meteorites to Earthlings visiting the show, along with scores of "View from Arunah" 's and AH Days flyer's. NEAF is a great way to catch up with old friends and get the word out on the magic that is Arunah Hill.

Dan also joined Barlow Bob and the NEAF solar crew for some great solar viewing once the skies parted on Sunday for all those who braved the flood waters on the Saw Mill Parkway










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Hill Still Frozen Tight

I went up to the hill tonight to see how things weathered. The road is clear to the barn, very rutted to the lower parking lot, then impassable beyond. There is still up to 18" of hardpacked snow on the roadway, though there are also drop-offs to bare ground. I'm not sure even a high clearance 4-wheel drive vehicle can make it to the summit at the moment. I parked at the barn and walked up. The clearing is mostly clear of snow, though it was frozen solid this evening. Our weather station is working great (31 degrees, winds out of the west-northwest at 7 MPH...) The radio is also in fine shape, which means the solar panel and batteries are in good shape. I chatted with folks on both the Mt Tom and Greylock repeaters, they said I was loud and clear. I'm not sure if we'll have an April work day this Saturday (April 2), it might be postponed until later in the month. Enjoy the pictures (Click to view large)

Busy "Opening Weekend" for Arunah Events!

March 25-25 didn't exactly bring Spring weather to Western Massachusetts, but that didn't stop us from kicking off the 2011 Calendar of Events in fine fashion.

On Saturday night, Ray Burk and I hosted a small star party at the Bullitt Reservation in Ashfield, MA. The Bullitt farm is one of the newest properties managed by the Trustees of Reservations, and is a beautiful location. The large hay field had great horizons and good dark skies, and Layla Hazen and the staff at Bullitt did a nice job organizing the event, and about 30 people turned out on a very chilly evening for a celebration of Earth Hour. Ray put his trusty old Coulter dob to good use showing of galaxies in Leo, the great Orion Nebula, and the Gemini-Auriga clusters. We had good views of Saturn rising and a few double stars in my Gen.

It was nice to be able to retreat to a warm classroom from time to time to thaw out. Thanks to the Trustees, and we look forward to doing more events at the Bullit.

On Sunday, Peter Scherff, Dan Carnvale, and I staffed a booth at the New England Air Museum's Annual Space Expo. Astronaut Rick Mastracchio was signing autographs at the booth across the way from us, and we had steady traffic all day.

Pete's 120 pound Campo del Cielo meteorite was a big draw. Everyone that stopped by got a free piece of Camo meteroite, to the joy of many junior scientiests.

Arunah Hill member Jim Zebrowski was also at the museum in his roll as NASA Solar System Ambassador, and as always had great stories and neat "toys", including a kid sized space suit.

A Weather Station and a new Subaru

This past Saturday’s impromptu work party saw Matt Paine, Ed Faits, and myself on the Hill to see how everything was wintering over. Matt picked me up in Northampton in his shiny new Subaru Outback, a great car with road comfort and AHC (Arunah Hill Clearance). He wasn’t only excited to be driving his new wheels, but also because this was the first time in quite a while he had driven his own car to the Hill. His old Camry (namely the exhaust flex pipe below the header) didn’t get along to well with the road in recent visits. For me it was nice to ride and enjoy the scenery as I spend lots of time behind the wheel. When we arrived around noon, the road had been cleared enough for 4WD and AWD vehicles to make it into a small clearing in the lower parking lot. Of course I was there egg Matt on in taking his shiny new car through the snow and slush to the lower lot…..hey, it wouldn’t be my towing bill!

On went my snowshoes, I grabbed my camera and Matt and I started up the road. Watching Matt walk fairly easily in his boots on the already compressed, wet snow I realized I could’ve probably left the snowshoes behind. The walk up the road was quite easy, there were some tracks from recent visitors and the fog had set in over the Hill, making for some neat photographs as the Gaertner and the Club House emerged into view.

At the Club House, Matt checked out the radio finding all had survived the brute of winter. Ed arrived just a few minutes later with a LaCrosse Weather Station in hand, donated to the Hill by the Faits Family. Ed had already mounted the tipping bucket rain gauge and thermo-hygrometer to a small wooden stand for mounting in an appropriate place. Ed and Matt decided to mount the solar powered anemometer/transmitter to the amateur radio antenna mast on the Club House. Up went Matt while Ed steadied the ladder and I took pictures and offered “positive” encouragement…..you know like “don’t worry if you fall, the snow is deep!” But wait, no one brought the appropriate tools to fasten said hardware to the mast. Matt was headed back down the Hill for his Leatherman which he “forgot” in his car. I personally think he was having withdrawals and needed to see the Outback again. Ed and I put batteries in the wall unit, rain gauge, and thermo-hygrometer sensor. Matt returned from his Subaru withdrawal pilgrimage with his Leatherman to finish mounting the anemometer. Does anyone have any idea how long it takes 3 nerdy Arunah Hill members (with telescopes, radio licenses, and “extensive” computer skills) to figure out how to setup a lousy wireless weather station? 1 hour, 8 soft resets, 4 remove-the-batteries resets, downloading the quick setup guide on my iphone, and 3 cycles of wondering what the heck “res in 55, 54, 53….” meant is about what it takes! It’s no wonder I can even post this blog entry.

All sensors communicated successfully with the base unit now mounted in the Club House, although the anemometer communication was intermittent. We think it was because of its battery not being fully charged under a cloudy sky….I’m sure it will be operating again on our next visit after a sunny day or two. The rain gauge and thermo-hygrometer were temporarily mounted on the north side of the Gaertner until a future work day. I will be constructing a fold down mast similar to the one for my 2 meter amateur radio install at my house for all the weather instruments. More on that later. In the meantime, don’t touch the buttons on the wall unit if you visit, lest you deal with the dreaded “res in” countdown to, well, we still don’t know what.
With the weather station installed and working, the fog cleared, and Matt having withdrawals again we all walked down to the lower lot….chit chatting about the upcoming Spring, what is bound to be a VERY wet melt season on the road, and how we might improve the road for the upcoming summer.

Thanks again to the Faits Family for the Weather Station!

Kevin.

Sunshine and Snowflakes

I used a pleasant seasonable morning to check out Arunah Hill today just to see how everything was wintering. All is well on the hill.

I parked in front of the mailbox, and hiked up the hill on our driveway, four inches of light powder snow on top of a hard and slick foundation. In a phenomenon know to skiers, a sunny sky with a bit of thin overcast somehow dropped steady light snow on the hill the whole time.

The hill was quiet and calm. It looked like someone must have been up on the hill after the first storm of the year, there were tracks from a 4 wheel drive vehicle, filled in by the recent powder. An abandoned attempted snowman lent evidence for someone having winter fun.

After warming hut for a few minutes in the hut and a few calls on the radio, I headed back home, day dreaming of starry spring nights, not too far in the future.

-Ed