“Doug’s dedication to dark sky conservation played a significant role in the designation of the first international dark sky park in New England,” says Chris Thayer, a senior director with the Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC). Arion, a professor emeritus of physics and astronomy at Carthage College in Wisconsin, led the effort to certify 100,000 acres of AMC property (between Moosehead Lake and Baxter State Park) as a dark sky park. Since opening in 2021, the AMC Maine Woods International Dark Sky Park has attracted thousands of visitors in search of the best stargazing in the region.

 “It’s the last naturally dark sky area in the East,” Arion says. “And reducing light pollution really solves a lot of problems. Starlight aids bird migration, plant growth, and even human health.” In 2012 he founded Mountains of Stars, a nonprofit educational partnership of the AMC and several colleges, including Dartmouth, that offers astronomy-based programs and events, sometimes in the Dark Sky Park. 

As a physics major, Arion enjoyed his Monday nights at Shattuck Observatory. Now he has his own home observatory in the White Mountains, outfitted with several large telescopes he built. “It’s basically a garage where the roof rolls off with a telescope ready to go,” he explains. 

Arion, who in 2009 helped create the Galileoscope, which costs less than $100 and has been used by thousands of amateur astronomers around the world, has built telescopes since the 1980s. “It’s an amazing process,” he says, “where you can make your own optics with your own hands.”