September 2017
Financials:
Beginning balance August 1: $1918.77
Monies collected from distribution of solar glasses: $649.54
Liability insurance payment: -$320.00
Ending balance: $2248.31
Attendance tonight: 31, including at least 6 visitors!
Business part of meeting:
The solar quilt—From the survey Karen had done in August, the option of donating the quilt got the most votes. We took a vote and decided to donate it to Mary Martha Outreach. Karen will drop off the quilt to Mary Martha. (Mary Martha got 9 votes tonight.)
Unitarian Church Sunday morning discussion group:
The Unitarian Church in Bartlesville has a Sunday morning class at 9:30 am that has discussions on various topics of general interest. They would welcome any speakers from the Astronomy Club who would like to present to the group.
New Vice President for the Club:
Since Karen Cruce is now President, we needed to fill the Vice President position. Evan Zorn accepted a nomination from several people and was voted in unopposed by acclamation.
New BAS website administrator/social media person/google email account administrator:
Since Racheeta has moved to Houston, we are in need of someone to fill this post. Derek with the youth group is considering taking this on!
Upcoming star parties:
Girl Scout star party at Wah-Sha-She Sept. 29: Will be from 8:30 -11 pm. Steve will send out a sign-up email. No inside presentation ahead of time, just viewing. There will be about 100 girl scouts in attendance from grades 4-12, plus about 50 adults. Steve is working on this with Melissa Baker from the Scouts.
September 9 at Prairie Song at Girl Scout fundraiser barbecue: They would like to have some telescopes on hand for night-sky viewing. Several people said they could attend or possibly attend. The event begins at 5 pm and presenters would get a free barbecue dinner. Viewing would start somewhere between 7:30-8 pm when it gets dark.
Sept. 30 Pawhuska rocket launch sponsored by Tulsa Rocketry Club. The overall event will take place Saturday and Sunday, Sept 30-Oct 1. The BYA will participate; they have built their own rockets to launch! (They will do this at 2:45 pm on the Saturday.) There will also be a star party as part of this event, sponsored by the Tulsa Astronomy Club. This weekend event takes place at the Pawhuska airport, on the hill.
Schools that have indicated interest in presentations by the Club:
Copan schools—a lady named Samantha is contact
Cornerstone Classical Academy (home school group) would like to have a presentation and star party sometime in early October. Daryl said he will work on that.
Eclipse follow-up (before the actual presentations):
Daryl is working on getting pictures of the eclipse to the McDonalds that supplied him and the BYA with smoothies and other foods, and the nice Super 8 hotel where they stayed. They had a good time in the hotel parking lot which had a McDonalds adjoining! The McDonalds would like a 20-second video.
John is working on a Google drive for eclipse pictures.
Main Program—Stories, Images and Videos of the August 21 Total Solar Eclipse, organized by Evan Zorn
Evan Zorn:
Evan and his mother spent the Sunday night at a hotel in Manhattan, Kansas. They studied the weather forecasts and went to St. Joseph, MO, based on the forecasts showing that area to have the best weather. Unfortunately, that turned out not to be the case. They did get to see just the very edge of the corona just a few seconds after totality, but the main totality part of the eclipse was completed obscured by clouds.
Evan showed a composite image (made from 7 frames) from NASA of the ISS crossing the sun in eclipse. These were taken in Banner, Wyoming.
He showed images from NOAA of the eclipse, a set of 12 frames. At the beginning and end you can see that the image is diffuse at the corners.
He showed another image of the Diamond.
Denise Gregg:
Denise showed images and a video from her church group’s trip to Four Horses and a Dog Winery in Excelsior, Missouri to see the eclipse. Tim Johnson from her church was instrumental in organizing the trip and he came to the meeting! The video was taken by Bob Steinhart from the church. Bob used a camera mounted on a tripod to take the video; he said having the tripod really helped! There were altogether 18 people in the group. You could see the photosphere at a couple spots in the video, and it ended with the final diamond. The group managed to see the most critical 50 minutes of the eclipse, in between thunderstorms. Viewers reported that crickets/katydids sang at totality, and as the sunlight came out again, a cock crowed! They got good pictures of the solar crescents through tree leaves. Craig of the Club brought a small telescope that came with a solar filter and he got to see Baily’s Beads—it looked like bright pixels getting clicked off one by one. The sky at totality was probably not as dark as it could have been, due to clouds on either side of the sun reflecting sunlight, but it did get dark and voices heard in the video commented on that. The group did not see 1st or 4th Contact due to clouds and thunderstorms. Traffic going to Kansas City, where the group spent the night, was light, but the going-home traffic was heavy until out of Kansas City. The Winery were gracious hosts; they even arranged for a violinist from the Kansas City Symphony, and a guitarist to perform, and they didn’t even charge us admission, as we heard some other wineries did.
Rick Bryant:
Rick told the story of the Bartlesville Youth Astronomers’ trip to Boonville, MO. It so happened that they hotel they booked was the same one that Daryl had booked months ago! They plus Daryl occupied 7 of the hotel’s 38 rooms. There were 26 people in the group altogether. Six families attended.
The group sported the 2017 BYA T-shirt which was designed with an eclipse theme. They had a “tent city” and “scope city”. Rick showed images of both!
The group used solar filters for cameras, telescopes and binoculars that they had made during the course of 3 workshops. 16 different filters!
Boonville, a town of about 35000 people—about the same size as Bartlesville—planned on about 225,000 people coming for the eclipse so they were well-prepared. They had community events Saturday through Monday. They called the event the Boonville Blackout and made 5X7 commemorative souvenir postcards of the event!
At totality – 20 minutes clouds came in, with thunder, but the skies cleared enough right before totality to see the main event. There were some high, thin cirrus clouds but they could still see the corona. They were able to see Baily’s Beads showed images!) plus the Diamond (more images!). They did see 4th Contact—skies were clear then--and you could see just the barest smudge of eclipse.
Rick commented that traffic the morning of the eclipse early on was steady, but 30 minutes prior, just light through-truck traffic; 10 mintes prior to totality, virtually no traffic at all.
The BYA will have their next meeting Sept. 18 at 7 pm at the library. Their presentation will feature eclipse stories, images and artwork!
John Grismore:
John actually gave two presentations, one of his neighbor Frank Little’s trip, and one of his own.
Frank went to Cuba, Missouri, on Route 66. 15 people in the green space in front of the hotel observed the eclipse with him. Frank took really good images of totality including the Diamond, prominences and the “dancing crescents” (Baily’s Beads). He used a Nikon camera mounted on a tripod.
John went to Wyoming after having discarded Plan A (Beatrice, NE) and a last-minute Plan B (Auburn, KY, where his wife’s parents lived). John and his wife had planned for some time to go to Beatrice, where NASA would be set up, and even took a reconnaissance trip there earlier in the summer just to check things out. They had no initial Plan B. On the Saturday night the 19th they decided they needed a Plan B due to the weather forecast for Beatrice, and they decided that would be Auburn, KY. There was no Plan C. Sunday morning, Plan B did not seem to be a viable option so they developed a Plan C, to go to Wyoming. They drove to Douglas, WY about 40 miles from Casper. Their “hotel” was in the back of their car and they were in an open spot with a lot of other tents and campers. John took images and video with his 6-inch Celestron with camera mounted on top. He took images at 30-second intervals starting at 1st Contact until totality, then at 10-second intervals during totality, then 30-second intervals until 4th Contact. The weather was clear for the entire event. All he had to do at totality with his camera was change the exposure and remove the solar filter. He took a variety of under- and over-exposed images to capture various elements of totality; he used under-exposure to capture the solar flares and inner corona. He had a fabulous video of totality with lots of ooh’s and aah’s. He said when totality was over, everyone clapped!
Daryl Doughty:
Daryl began his presentation with an image taken August 19 of the waning lunar crescent, 2 days and 6 hours before totality.
Daryl shared that he met a medical doctor at the total solar eclipse he went to in Winnipeg in 1979 and he met another on the Boonville trip!
Daryl took images of the eclipse with a 135mm lens and 600 mm telescope.
He said that at 10:40 on August 21 it was reasonably clear and then 5 minutes after !st Contact the clouds came in. Daryl got good images of the dim ground—shapes and shadows. He took different exposure images of totality. Including a great image of the ultra-thin crescent right before totality at 1:11 pm and another of the last bit of the Diamond. He captured stars—and clouds—in his images and did capture 4th Contact at 2:39 pm.
He ended his main presentation with another image of the sliver moon taken back home on August 23, 2 days and 6 hours after totality!
He also showed an image of the “Oreo Eclipse” (made of an Oreo with the filling a bit askew) which someone sent him, whch the sender said, they then ate.
Just for fun he also showed an overlay image he prepared of the Sun and Moon, with the Moon bigger than the Sun.
He also showed two excellent videos taken of the eclipse in Warm Springs, Oregon by an Asian group.
He also showed images of the damage that can be done to camera diaphragms and lenses without proper solar filters! (They get fried.)
He commented that for the next total eclipse in 2024, to be in the Texas area or near Texas would probably have better weather than being in the northeast at that time of year.
Steven Plank:
He said NASA wants pictures of the eclipse.
Steve stayed in Bartlesville and took excellent images of near-totality here with very clear skies and excellent weather.
Richard (don’t have last name):
He was with his mother at Tallgrass Estates here in Bartlesville and watched with 40-50 people from the Estates. He noted that shadows were eerie and weird and had excellent images of near-totality in Bartlesville.
Jim Vogh, a long-term Club member, went to Guernsey, Wyoming, straight north of Denver. He had excellent composite images of totality!
There was one final presenter (don’t have his name) who went to Kearney, NE. He noted that the temperature did drop, crickets chirped, birds went to the trees and that it was a bit like dusk. He also had excellent images of totality.
Bob Young set up a beautiful visual presentation at the back of the room of eclipse pictures he took with his camera mounted on a telescope.