Arunah Hill

08/31/2026

Arunah Hill Days just got even better!

We'll have a special raffle of a fine 6" refractor. Tickets will be limited to 200 so your chances of winning will be good. Tickets are $5 for one, or six for $25.

Includes a solid alt-az mount and a solar filter. At least a $2,000 value! This telescope is from the Tom Whitney bequest, some of you may remember it from 5A public events. The Meade 152 ED APO is legendary among refractor fans.

Proceeds will fund improvements on the hill.

08/30/2026

Ever seen Saturn in a 120-year-old telescope?

The Gaertner Telescope will catch the ringed planet during Arunah Hill Days. Used to teach generations of students at Smith College, this wonderful scope is now a cherished feature on the hill.

08/29/2026

Productive workday today. Just about ready for Arunah Hill Days. Thanks Barry H, Dan C, Tyler G, Andrew C, James E, Tom S, Bob D, & Bill and Gene L.

08/29/2026

If you haven't discovered it yet, the Northern Berkshire Astronomical Society maintains an amazing web site!

Informative articles, Astro quizzes, and much more.

Northern Berkshire's home for amateur astronomy — whatever your experience, you belong under our skies.

08/28/2026

Too early to worry about the long-term weather forecast, but I know for certain that we have great keynote speakers for Arunah Hill Days:
Friday is Bob Donahue, PhD, talking exoplanets.
Saturday is the amazing astrophotography of Marsha Wilcox, ScD.

We are lucky to have these two talented, articulate,and dedicated science communicators.

08/25/2026

Saturday August 29th is our next workday. We will be getting the hill ready for Arunah Hill Days which takes place September 4th-6th. Lots of tasks on the agenda. Come on up and lend a hand. Hope to see you there.

08/24/2026

Driving up to Arunah Hill I pass "Indian Oven Road". I always wondered what the story was behind that name. I found this:

Dual Flash Hikes Saturday this past weekend as Karen and I kept us active but cool! Indian Oven Road, namely so in Worthington first stop on Karen’s Worthington crawl. “On the lin…

08/18/2026

Labor Day weekend plans?

Bring a carload of kids for the Saturday rockets, drop in for the talks and stargazing, or camp for the whole weekend, plan on attending Arunah Hill Days!

http://arunahhill.org/AHDays26.pdf

-Telescopes
-Dark Skies, the Milky Way and Saturn
-Fine art Astrophotography from Dr. Marsha Wilcox
-All about exoplanets from Bob Donahue, PhD
-camping, nature trails

08/16/2026

Great weekend on the hill! Thanks to all who came out and viewed the wonderful night skies over Arunah Hill. We had over 50 people on the hill on Saturday and were rewarded with good skies, a few late Perseid meteors, and even a rocket-venting event. Below is a classic "summer Milky Way" object imaged under clear Bortle 3/4 skies at Arunah Hill Friday night.

This image is centered on IC 1284 and the surrounding area, near the small Sagittarius star cloud. It contains glowing "emission" nebula of excited hydrogen gas and dark dust lanes toward the "center" of our home galaxy.

This photo was a total of 82 minutes of 10-second exposures using tiny SeeSTAR S50 astrograph, stacked and lightly processed in PixInsight.