October 2021 Meeting Notes
Bartlesville Astronomical Society Meeting Minutes
October 13, 2021
• Opening and Welcome
• Thank you to Denise Gregg for Zoom setup
• 7 in attendance including two former-member visitors
• Announcements
• Library is available for meetings!
• When do we want to meet in person? Mike suggested that we not try to meet in person for the rest of this year.
• Room on the second floor not available? Library has booked an exercise class in meeting room A through March. Denise will contact Denise Goff at the library to cancel meeting room C for November and December and book it for January 10. (January 3 the library will be closed for New Year’s.)
• Minutes of previous meeting are posted online by Denise Gregg - Approved
• Treasurer’s Report - Evan Zorn
• Ending balance August 31, 2021: $7353.11
• Add donation through Benevity, $679.70
• Three annual renewals:
• Zoom $74.95
• P.O. Box $134.00
• Insurance $323.20
• Ending balance Sept. 30, 2021: $7000.66
• Dues
• Committee Reports
• Astronomical League news and activities - Denise Gregg. Astronomical League in-person conference scheduled for Albuquerque next year July 28-30; email was sent recently to Club members about this.
• Peggy Walker is looking for photos for MSRAL website
• Youth club (BYA) news - Rick Bryant—Rick was not in attendance this evening
• Library Display - Update
• If you have items on display, plan to pick them up at the First Christian Church later
• There are 2 levels in storage - Who is the owner?
• We are booked to do a library display for May 2022.
• Need a coordinator and helpers if anyone would like to volunteer!
• We need to get started fairly soon. We would need at least two-three months’ lead time to prepare exhibits, especially if we would like the youth to contribute.
• Dark Sky committee - John Blaesi
• We made sky quality measurements at OHSP. 21.3 or better
• Need volunteers to take measurements
• bvilleastro+darksky@gmail.com
• Old Business
• Need name badges and letterhead with Club logo
• New Business
• Discussed September meeting attendance
• We had 12 guests and 6 members
• We need more participation from our members!
• Ideas that were brought up:
• Pre-registration for Zoom meetings, and use recurring Zoom links.
• It was brought up that we could put Zoom links on the BAS home page, but Denise said we haven’t done that, so that we know who comes to Zoom meetings. (Up until now, we haven’t done the Zoom “waiting room”, as links aren’t publicized except to the newsletter group and invited guests.)
• Denise also said we haven’t used recurring Zoom links in case we do meet in person, and someone tries to join a Zoom meeting that isn’t happening.
• Once in-person meetings begin again, do usual publicity via the yellow sheet, Sparklight TV channel announcements and the newspaper
• John Blaesi says he has four speakers lined up so far for 2022.
• Denise volunteered to present on “A Year’s Worth of Meteor Showers” again in January to kick the year off.
• Star parties
• When do we have in person star parties?
• We could try to schedule one any time now, for members only to start with.
• John Grismore suggested having one at the Jo Allyn Lowe Star Garden on October 29, after they have mowed the area.
• Elections in November
• Nominations? Evan and Denise said they would continue to be Treasurer and Secretary.
• Dues
• Ask if people want to be dropped from membership? We can do this.
• Active members should pay
• Denise read an email she received from Sunfest saying that the Sunfest Board is looking for new Board members for next year.
• Tulsa Girl Scouts trying to get an observatory for NASA donated telescope
• Craig is going to meet with Rachel next Thursday
• Need Astronomical League coordinator - Kristi Herrman
• Denise Gregg is filling in
• Need web wizard and social media wrangler - Derek Herrman
• Denise Gregg is filling in
• Need someone with Facebook and Twitter skills
• Astronomy News and Events
• Neil DeGrasse Tyson in Tulsa October 4 at Cox Business Center—two Club members went to this event
• International Observe the Moon Night - October 16
• Astronomy News - Abby Bollenbach
• Abby is making presentations for Astronomy magazine.
• Latest are “The Voyager Missions” and “What are Quasars?”
• View at http://astronomy.com select the Videos tab
• Astronomy Club of Tulsa
• October 22 – In-person at Jenks Planetarium 7:00 p.m.
• John Blaesi will present on “Obtaining an International Dark Sky Designation”
https://astrotulsa.com
• OKC Astronomy Club
• October 15 - in person meeting at Science Museum Oklahoma
• Cosmosphere
• Remodeling the German exhibit area
• Celebrating the 60th Anniversary of Liberty Bell 7
• Special Liberty Bell exhibit
• https://cosmo.org
• Kalamazoo Astronomical Society Zoom meetings - kasonline.org
• Meeting is November 6pm via zoom
• “Luminous” - Documentary screening
• Prediction of a binary star merger in Cygnus in 2022
• Astrophotography Special Interest group
• October 15 7:00 p.m.
• Narrowband Imaging Considerations
• Register at https://kasonline.org
• Remote telescope sessions begin November 5
• Meteor showers
• Orionids - October 20
• Taurids - November 4
• Upcoming astronomical events
• Club Events
• Star parties: Rick Buck
• Girl Scout Observing Event at Wah-Shah-She - Reschedule sometime in the future
• Maureen of the Tulsa GSA
• They will possibly have an eVscope
• Star Party for Dewey School - TBA
• St. Lukes - TBA
• Wayside school - TBA
• Osage Hills First Light - Next year!
• John Blaesi - upcoming events
• Jo Allyn Lowe Park Star Garden - John Grismore. John has been out to Jo Allyn Lowe since they put in new lights in the parking lot at the south end of the hill next to Price Road. The new lights are much better shielded than the old ones were and dark sky visibility in the star garden is noticeably better!
• Observing reports
• OHSP
• Terrible viewing most of the summer, but may be clearing?
• At the last measurement/observation session at Osage Hills on the evening of September 8, we could pick out some stars in clusters but not all.
• Triangulum may be good to view this week.
• Member photos
• Peggy Walker is looking for photos for the MSRAL website.
• Tonight’s Program
• Denise Gregg - New website. Denise led a tour of the new website and pointed out where things are. Most of the work on the new website was done by John Grismore and Craig. The old website had a lot under the “About” tab and this has been restructured to have new tabs for different topics—Documents, Observing and Gallery. Under the new Documents tab are Newsletters, Meeting Programs, Meeting Notes, Files and the Shut-in Supplements. Under the new Observing tab are Past Observations, Laser Policy and Links. Under the new Gallery tab are photos and videos. The About tab still has About BAS and BYA and the Leadership page. It also now has the BYA page under About BAS; BAS History under About BAS; a new News tab, with the library telescope page underneath that; and the Contact page. The Events tab still has the calendar link, Astronomy Event Etiquette, Event Maps and Directions and Event Notes. Under the Join tab are Membership and Donate. There is no longer a Search tab; to search for something, use the Search icon at top right.
Evan and Denise need to work on the PayPal option for paying dues on the new website.
Craig is working on a new Maps page that has links to maps of Jo Allyn Lowe Star Garden and Tri County Tech already in it. He will add a link to Osage Hills State Park.
• Adjournment
• Next meeting - November 1
• TBD - Betty Keim interested in another meeting (in person this fall)
• Volunteers needed for upcoming meetings - Bob Young
• Thanks!
• Ice cream at virtual Braum’s!!!
• Motion to adjourn