June 2017

26 people in attendance

Financials:

Beginning balance May 1 2017 $2561.27

1 new membership $20.00

Printing expenses -$184.84

Donation to Ranch Heights PTO for Literacy Program -$100.00

Ending balance 5/31/17 $2296.43

Abby’s Astronomy News highlights:

· Image of NGC8917 13^th magnitude, in Libra

· Image of hundreds of galaxies 6 billion light years away. Gravitational lensing—bending light. 630 hours of exposure went into creating the image.

· Image of NGC7250

· Image of small magellanic cloud in dwarf galaxy

· Image of starburst galaxy—region where stars form—a gas-eater; gas used up creating the stars faster than it is replenished

· Image of SH2308 star bubble in Canis Major

· Jupiter’s red spot is shrinking. Becoming more circular rather than oval. Could be gone, at this rate, in 17 years.

· Ice cap on Jupiter is hexagonal. Caused by winds?

· Cassini last fly-by of Titan, at a distance of 680 miles. Could host life?? On April 20 Cassini dived in between Saturn’s rings.

· Image of GNZ11 Universe then 3% of its current age.

· Image of runaway super massive black hole. Weighs more than the weight of one billion of our suns.

Update on observation sites from Steve:

· Tri County Tech has given us a waiver to have star parties without Tri County being liable for any problems. We just need to let them know we are having one, as a courtesy to them.

· Another location Steve checked out last year but so far has had little interest is the oil lease location about 6 miles west of the Bartlesville airport. There is some noise at the location, due to it being on an oil lease. Could interfere with go-to scopes, possibly. Email Steve if want to go. No age restrictions as long as children or teens accompanied by an adult. (Any dark-skies site, for that matter, should not have children or teens present without an adult. Nor should any adult visit a dark-skies site just by themselves.)

· Locations fronting Madison Blvd. near the old Madison school: There are 3 different lots. 2 of them have a pretty good slope but some of the drive-through areas are flat. There are some lights in the area but not too bad. Not as good right by Hoover Elementary. These locations would not be good for a public star party. To the north is Sooner Park (where we have to be out by 11 pm) but the school property runs to the east of the parking lots.

Next public star party: TBD. June not a good month to try to plan a party well in advance due to possibility of rain/clouds. What we can do (and what Steve has done recently, with the Madison locations we’re checking out) is send out a last minute email to the group (just hours before a party) if the weather looks good and there would be something of particular interest to see, and then whoever is able to come, can come.

Event at Ranch Heights Elementary May 12: Children made comet necklaces or a hat decorated with outline drawings they colored in of the solar system. They also got a presentation by Jerry on star lore in the “planetarium” set up in the gym, where the event took place. Students ranged in age from pre-K through 5^th grade. All the students in pre-K participated; the older grades came if their class had the highest score in a literary contest the school had. The older grades received a card about the event from the Club…and a moon pie!

John Johnson from the Bartlesville Masonic Lodge visited and talked about the possibility of some time doing a fundraising event for the Club. The Masons have funds available (would be earmarked for us to do programs for kids) that the Masons would match event proceeds with. Bartlesville tends to do a pancake breakfast and usually these are planned a year in advance. Other cities like Pawhuska, Dewey and Nowata tend to do raffles to raise money. No date was set for a fundraiser at this point; he just wanted to tell us that this would be possible for us to set up with them. Are pancake breakfasts well attended in Bartlesville? Yes! Abby participated in one and cracked 750 eggs!

Upcoming total solar eclipse: Can get an Eclipse magazine at Wal-Mart. You can pre-order an eclipse stamp the Post Office is doing. There will be a two-hour show on the eclipse on NASA TV (not regular TV) June 21, noon-2 pm: 2 months before the live event.

Rick and Peggy Walker from Broken Arrow Sidewalk Astronomy visited. Rick did a video of Abby, Derrick and Jerry following the meeting outside the library; they each spoke, and held one of our banners as they spoke.

Peggy presented on the possibility of us participating in (and organizing) the MSRAL event next June in Tulsa. (June 22-24). She gave us her background with the BA Sidewalk Astronomy group and an overview of the event but there was not enough time to go into nitty-gritty details of what would be involved in us organizing and hosting this event. At the conclusion of the meeting, we decided that a board meeting would need to take place, to which other club members would be invited, to decide whether or not we want to participate in and do planning for this event.

· Peggy did a drawing of M42 which was printed in the Astronomy League magazine.

· She works a lot with Broken Arrow schools’ STEM program.

· She has 20-something scopes.

· MSRAL has 5 states participating (Nebraska - Kansas - Missouri - Arkansas - Northern Oklahoma)

· The last MSRAL event held in Tulsa was in 2003.

· An MSRAL event gives an opportunity for local networking.

· For the Friday night dinner would get a caterer

· We would select food to be served at meals

· Would need 8-10 people to do things like check in people at a registration table and handle give-aways. People would register for the conference itself at a website we would have to set up.

· The event would have youth speakers—speaking to youth attendees

· The lady who presented on meteorites last December will be a featured speaker

· She would like for attendees to make small radio telescopes and we would help to pay for the materials to make these

· We could skype in people at the event