December 2019 Meeting Notes

December 2019 Meeting Notes

16 people attended, no guests

Minutes of previous meeting were approved. Denise will not be at January meeting; Lynne Hunt offered to take the minutes at this meeting!

Treasurer's report from Evan:

Beginning balance Nov. 1 $2668.66

Add $540.00 in member dues

Ending balance Nov. 30 $3208.66

Committee reports:

Astronomical League from Kristi--

An email was forwarded on November 18 to all BAS members which contained a link to a website with information about the 2020 Astronomical League Conference (ALCON), to be held in July 2020 in Albuquerque, NM. The website address is taas.org (The Albuquerque Astronomical Society).

BYA news from Rick Bryant--

This month's BYA meeting will be centered on lunar observations, weather permitting. Will have games if stay indoors. They will also be having a pre-Christmas sale. Rick said that the BYA have worked on craft projects this year that Rick has paid for himself, and Rick has also bought a data projector and a microphone for the BYA. The BYA will be selling extra telescope kits, flashlight kits and other items, and Rick hopes to be able to raise funds to recoup his investment in the BYA.

Library display next April from Abby--

    • We had our kickoff brainstorming meeting at Jude's Nov. 23.

    • One of the things that came out of that meeting was a desire to display images that BAS/BYA members have taken. (We only want to display images that we have taken, not downloads from NASA or Hubble images, for example.) These will be displayed in banners; individual laminated images on the library case back wall; and on a TV screen video loop that we will set up. The TV loop will also display videos that we have taken. (There is an outlet where TV can be plugged in at the right hand corner of the display case, and library staff will turn the TV on and off every day.)

    • We may have more than one banner; for example, one could be on deep space objects (stars, galaxies, nebulae) and another on Solar System objects (Sunspots, eclipses, planets, the Moon, comets, etc.).

    • Craig showed us a prototype at tonight's meeting of a 2 ft. by 8 ft. banner displaying images that Rick Buck and Rick Bryant had taken of deep space objects. Everyone seemed to like it! We can have banners made with grommets so they could be hung at our Sunfest booth.

    • If you have any images that you would like to be used in a banner, please contact Craig.

    • If you have any images that you would like to be laminated to put on the wall, or images or videos that you would like to put into the TV loop, please email them to lbwillowwren@gmail.com.

    • Setup of the exhibit will take place on April 1.

    • We will have further discussions about the library display at Braum's after the meeting.

    • The next meeting of the library display planning group will take place on Saturday, January 11 at 10 am in the Starbucks area of Eggberts. Please come to that meeting if you would like to participate in the planning of this event.

Letterhead and name badge update from Rick Bryant--

He is working first on name badges. He has sent out some samples to some Club members and is awaiting feedback. Denise printed the options he has suggested and these were passed around at the meeting.

Annual dues are due! Please pay these to Evan if you haven't yet done so.

Regular adult membership $25.00

Student membership through college: $10.00

Family of two: $30.00

Family of three or more: $40.00

Next BAS Board meeting: We would like to have one Tuesday evening, Dec. 10, at Our Savior Lutheran Church. This is pending Bob Young being able to make arrangements with the church. Board members will be notified.

Abby's astronomy news highlights:

    • Particles have been discovered that travel faster than light! 15,000 neutrinos traveled 16 nanoseconds faster than light from CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) to Italy. This reversed Einstein's theory that nothing could travel faster than light.

    • Comet 21/Borisov will make its closest approach (just over two AU) to the Sun on December 8. This comet comes to us from beyond our solar system and has a tail 100,000 miles long. The comet's emissions indicate the presence of cyanide and atomic oxygen. Considering the presence of atomic oxygen, the presence of water is also anticipated. It is possible the comet could also contain diatomic carbon.

    • A radio scope is now located at the far side of the moon, courtesy of the Chinese Quegiao communications relay satellite. This radio scope, the Netherlands-China Low Frequency Explorer (NCLE), is a radio-astronomy experiment for measuring radio emissions back to the early universe, studying space weather, and observing the radio environment in the vicinity of the Earth and Moon.

    • The Andromeda galaxy has 500 million stars. She showed an image that looked fuzzy...the fuzzies were actually some of these many millions of stars!

    • A pair of distant explosions discovered by NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory have produced the highest-energy light yet seen from these events, called gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). These detections provide new insights into the mechanisms driving gamma-ray bursts. On January 14, 2019, the Fermi and Swift satellites detected a spike of gamma rays from the constellation Fornax. The location of the burst was called GRB 190114C. The fading afterglow of GRB 190114C and its home galaxy were imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope on Feb. 11 and March 12, 2019. The difference between these images reveals a faint, short-lived glow about 800 light years from the galaxy’s core. Blue colors beyond the core indicate the presence of hot, young stars, indicating that this is a spiral galaxy a bit similar to our own. It is located about 4.5 billion light-years away.

    • She showed images of 27 new massive stars exploding!

    • The Great Red Spot on Jupiter is not going away...it is flaking. Images taken in May and June, 2019, showed large red "flakes" spinning off from the storm system that is the Great Red Spot. This led to assumptions that the storm system is getting smaller. However, we don't see the storm directly, just the clouds visible above it. The "flaking" seen appears to be a normal result of storms interacting, rather than an indication that the Great Red Spot storm is weakening.

    • "Dust towers" have been observed on Mars, which happen during large storms on the red planet. These very large dust clouds are denser than normal clouds and climb much higher into the atmosphere, forming dramatic columns. They can reach up to 50 miles into the air and decay to form a layer of dust 35 miles above the surface, which can be wider than the continental U.S. These dust clouds act as "space elevators", lifting materials up into the Martian atmosphere.

    • A chondrite meteorite found in Algeria in 1990 has fossil asteroidal ice--pockets of ice that will never melt!

    • Astronomical League calendars are available--$13.00 each

Member photos:

Rick Bryant showed us some of the beautiful images he has processed that he took at Okie-Tex. These included the Milky Way with the Summer Triangle, Cassiopeia, Andromeda, the double cluster in Pegasus, and Sagittarius--an image covering 150 degrees! Another featured the Milky Way with the Summer Triangle and Delphinus; another had the Milky Way with Cygnus and the North American Nebula. Another had Taurus with the Pleiades and M36, M37 and M38 open clusters in Auriga. Another featured the California Nebula through thin clouds.

Star parties in November: Rick Buck was not in attendance but Craig and Denise gave a quick recap.

    • John Blaesi and John Grismore planned a last-minute observation at the Osage Hills tennis court to evaluate this site for possible future Club star parties. Weather was clear and observing was excellent.

    • We also had clear weather and excellent observing at the member star party at the Lambs' house on November 23. This was attended by about 20 people, including BYA families, and was enjoyed by all.

    • A Mercury solar transit event that was planned for November 11 was rained out.

    • Denise presented on meteor showers at the Civitan Club meeting Nov. 7. The A/V setup the Civitan Club had was fairly new, and using flash drive didn't work! Denise had sent her presentation to herself in email and was able to talk through the presentation using her iPhone.

Upcoming star parties:

    • The Wayside School party planned for Dec. 6 has had to be postponed until Jan/Feb next year.

    • Dewey School party--was scheduled for November 15 but cancelled. New date TBD.

    • St. John's School--they would like to schedule an event on a Wednesday evening but no date has been set.

    • New Year's Eve midnight hike and telescope viewing at Osage Hills State Park--Nick Conner with the Park had suggested telescope viewing as a possibility at the November meeting but no more news at this time. Osage Hills has an annual hike at 12:01 a.m. on January 1.

    • There is an annual Texas Star Party for anyone in the Club who might be interested. It takes place in 2020 on May 17-24 near Fort Davis, Texas. The event is only open to 500 people and there is a drawing in January to determine who can attend. You must submit an Registration/Reservation Request form before the January 17 deadline to be entered into the drawing. https://texasstarparty.org/get-started/

Main presentation by John Blaesi--Kisssing the Milky Way--Keep It Simple Seven Step Method for Simple Milky Way Photography Part II--Processing

Basic steps:

First (recapping from Part I of this topic earlier this year), consider the weather at the time you will be working, the Moon, the Sun, the location you will be photographing from, the equipment and camera settings you are using, and finally, the post processing we will do. (Tonight will focus on post processing.) Lunar considerations include phases, time of rise and set, and location in the sky. For the Sun, consider the time darkness sets in (after astronomical dusk). For location, try to find dark skies (www.lightpollutionmap.info) and consider whether or not the location of the Milky Way will affect your work. For your camera, try for full manual exposure. The type of camera lens you have is important. For format settings, use RAW and Jpeg. Also use a sturdy tripod. Practice your setup in the daytime (not looking at the Sun!) including both equipment and where you will be working.

Post Processing:

For post processing, first start off with a good picture.

Then work with--

    • Lens correction and histogram (basic correction of photo)

    • Exposure, white balance, hue and saturation (make skies look more like night)

    • Clarity, dehaze and structure (boost the look of the Milky Way)

    • Highlights, shadows and contrast (separating stars from night)

    • Graduated filter, bushes and masks (bring out the galaxy)

    • Vignette and effects

    • You can also apply presets.

The only real rule about post processing is getting the results that *you* like.

John demonstrated these techniques by doing post processing, using Luminar 3, on an image of the Milky Way taken by Bob Young. He also showed several stages in post processing done on an image taken and processed by Rick Bryant. He demonstrated getting rid or changing parts of the image that you don't like as much or detract from the rest of the image.

Next meeting: January 6. Abby will be presenting on quasars and pulsars.

Braum's after the meeting!