December 2015
Financials:
Opening balance Nov. 1 1429.67
19 member renewals 380.00
1 new member 20.00
Sky and Telescope subscription pass through 32.95 (for member, paid for by member)
Nov. 3. Sky and Telescope subscription pad by member, through club -32.95
Ending balance Nov. 30 1829.67
The club now has 35 total memberships. 24 have paid for membership in 2016.
We started the year with 25 memberships, so we have increased membership by ten this year…a 40% increase!
19 people attended today’s meeting including one visitor.
Karen has now given out all the 2016 calendars that were ordered.
• Update from Melissa Clayton with Wesleyan Christian school:
Steve had given her a solar system model. Her classes have used it and they liked it very much! They took it to a football field and set it up. In keeping with the dimensions of the solar system, after laying it all out, they walked to the first few planets and drove to the rest!
• Update on OK Mozart star party:
OKM will pay the dues for the insurance. We just have to show up!
The date of the star party will be Saturday, June 11. Rain/cloud date is Sunday, June 12. If both nights don’t have stargazing weather, OKM will take care of offering another showcase event, if they want to.
OKM will bill the event as a dark sky visit to the moon and stars. (Steve has already checked; the moon will be visible that night.) The event will be billed as an opportunity to see craters and mountains on the moon, plus several planets and constellations.
A school bus holding up to 50 people will depart the Community Center at 8:30 pm to go to Camp Wah-Shah-She. It will go to the lodge, where Daryl (tapped by Steve) will give a speech on what they are about to see, combined with a safety presentation.
**We need a projector for this event** that we can hook up to a telescope.
We would go in advance to Wah-Shah-She to set everything up—scopes, handouts, etc.
• Update on finding a dark sky site for us to use:
Rick, Steve and John have been scouting around for one. They have looked at a site east of Dewey. The Caney bottomlands area was also mentioned as a possible spot.
Denise mentioned that perhaps the Sutton Aviary Research Center might be willing to let us use some of their land. Someone else remembered that the person we met at our booth at SunFest wanted to partner with us. Denise will look into this. The Center is on Gap Road near Circle Mountain.
• Update on an astronomy class you can take:
Daryl will be teaching a basic astronomy class at Tri County Tech this winter starting in January. (See page 11 of the latest Tri County Tech class brochure.) 6 weeks on Thursday nights, 2 hours per class. Cost 79.00. No tests.
Daryl’s latest images:
Occultation of Moon and Venus Dec. 7 in the morning (11 am). He started photographing at 6 am, viewing the Moon and Venus in the east, along with Spica in Virgo. Then he increased his image exposure time to 10 seconds and captured Corvus the crow, Virgo and Arcturus along with the Moon and Venus. (He used an 18mm focal length.) He then captured Venus as it intersected the Moon but clouds prevented him seeing it emerge on the other side. The Moon advanced about 1 /2 degree per hour while he was watching it this morning.
Sun: Image taken Dec. 7 showed just a few, very small sunspots.
Other natural life: He also showed a cute picture of a red fox he took in his back yard!
Main presentation: Rich Kowalczyk and his daughter Jewel Ann, on Tips, and Lessons Learned and Resources for Beginning Astronomy Enthusiasts
Rich said he grew up during the Apollo era and he wanted to be an astronaut. He got a reflector telescope while he was still In school with some good eye pieces.
Rich said he and his daughter had a good time they had observing the total lunar eclipse Sept. 27—not just through a telescope, but simply watching it with eyes alone!
Resources for new club members:
Others in the club! He said the collective experience of members is one of our club’s greatest resources.
The Guide to Stargazing (club handout) that Rick prepared
Sky and Telescope website’s free eBook
Astronomy Magazine’s website feature Sky This Week
Backyard Astronomer’s Guide (book), which will help you learn the basics, such as the orientation of the night sky, right ascension and declination
Turn Left at Orion (book)
Pocket Sky Atlas from Sky and Telescope is an example of a night sky atlas
Project Apollo Archive on Flickr
The April issue of Sky and Telescope tells how to see all 6 Apollo lunar landing sites
www.astronomy.org (that publishes Sky and Telescope) has a Lunar Program Intro broken down by visual sighting, using binoculars, and basic telescopes. This gives you a checklist you can check off and you can even get a certificate for Lunar 1 and Lunar 2 from the League! He said this is a good methodical way to start learning about the Moon!
He also suggested getting a good lunar map and a reverse lunar map (since telescope images are reversed).
Above all, read, read read!
Then his daughter Jewel Ann spoke—she hadn’t even planned to speak until that very afternoon! She is a freshman in high school and said that she could apply tonight’s talk toward her speech class that she is taking!
She said she is very thankful to be living in Bartlesville, which has so many resources—school system and otherwise—and people who want to improve themselves and help others do the same. She said that people tend to get too focused on the world around them. She said that what helps her to gain perspective is to picture the Sun shining on the Earth—and then the Earth’s shadow on the Moon!
She enjoyed her 8th grade physical science class which included a unit on astronomy. Demonstrating her interest in the sciences, one book she recently checked out of the library was The Dreams That Stuff is Made Of by Stephen Hawking.
She then said that we, as a club, need to share our knowledge more with students. We should be informing people in our community as a whole about astronomy, especially the younger ones, and the younger the better. (If you don’t reach people until their later years in high school, by that point they may have already decided on a career path.) We should focus on helping young people want to become involved with astronomy and help them to make their dreams (if they get interested) a reality.
Rich said we need to grow the BAS; we need a bigger room now!
She suggested that we start reaching the younger crowd with a star party. (She herself remembered one from when she was little!)
Jewel Ann’s presentation evolved into a Q and A on how we might be able to reach students. Here is what came out of that discussion:
The high school does not have an astronomy club, at least for freshmen
Are there any high school math/physics clubs that might have students who would be interested in an astronomy club?
We should approach science teachers about having a star party. We would need a teacher-sponsor. Jewel Ann said it would be OK if, at first, things seemed over students’ heads; it would stimulate their curiosity and excite them!
Has anything along these lines been done or tried by the club before? Star parties we have sponsored, up to now, have been for elementary students only.
What about liability issues?
Should we have “Junior Version” of the astronomy club (with students’ dues of 10.00), say, on the 3rd Monday of the month?
Jewel Ann said that she (as a student) can set out brochures at her school, but that we couldn’t do it ourselves without permission.
She said she can give an update of anything she has been able to find out on her end at the next meeting.