August 2016

Financials:

July 1--$2439.34 beginning balance

$40 new family membership with 3 children

-$523.07 for new projector and adapter

Ending balance August 1 $1956.27

Vicki also submitted the IRS tax-exempt organization form 990N and the Oklahoma SIZE form for tax exempt status

Attendance:

24 people at meeting

2 visitors including 1 new member and her guest

Jerry showed us another couple of the models he has created—the Hubble Telescope and its insides.

Fran Stallings is working on a story telling presentation in September with a guest story teller—more details to come out later.

Perseids:

Party at Abigail’s friend’s house at 9 pm after the Bartian Youth Astronomers’ meeting at the same location. Can come early while it’s still light out and the perseid party will begin after the youth meeting

Astronomy news from Abigail:

First solar-powered flight ended at Abu Dhabi; 118-hour mission

40 years ago on July 1, 1976, Viking I had our first soft landing on Mars

Hubble has taken photographs of the NGC 1569 constellation, a region of very active star formation; in the Camelopartalids

A comet has been discovered to have ethyl alcohol and sugar components. (Did its photograph look a little bit tipsy?) This means that a comet can have organic molecules.

The core of the Milky Way galaxy has a super massive black hole, shaped like an X.

VOSS system is used to measure the expansion rate of the cosmos

The Meerkat is the best radio detector of its kind in the southern hemisphere; has found 1300 galaxies in the distant universe. It will continue to be the best of its kind until the SKA, Square Kilometer Array, has all of its 64 panels completed

Star flashes in Scorpio—2 variable stars, a white and a red dwarf

Youth astronomy website: youthbastro@gmail.com, password astronomy

Main presentation—Star Lore by Derek Hermann—an introduction to night sky stories

Star stories have been used to describe creation, document mythological stories, stars and star patterns, cultural fables, and history itself

Star lore also encompasses the naming of stars and planets.

Humans are wired to find patterns in things, which led to the naming of constellations.

The Greeks, Romans, Native Americans, Middle Eastern cultures and the Chinese all have rich star lore.

The Greeks did the “hard work” circa 4000 BC of naming constellations and stars.

The Romans circa 2000 BC gave their own names to constellations. Hermes>>Mercury; Dragon>>Draco.

Ptolemy was the first real astronomer. He used logic to draw conclusions and took astronomy seriously. He was born in Greece during Roman times.

In the Americas, each major tribe had its own ideas about star lore. The Plains and Rocky Mountains Indians were the tribes most interested in star lore. The Bear (Ursa Major) and the Pleiades (7 sisters) figured in the star stories based around Devil’s Tower in Wyoming. (The 7 sisters were camping; and a mother bear and her cub chased them. One of the sisters knelt to pray for rescue, and eventually took refuge in the sky.)

Many of the star names we know today, such as Aldebaran, Betelgeuse, Rigel and Deneb come from the ancient Middle Eastern cultures’ naming of stars.

The Macedonians realized that Polaris points north.

The Chinese used the night sky for navigation. 3000 years ago they made the first written maps of the night sky. The Chinese made lower powered telescopes before Galileo made his. They also invented the Zodiac system which has been shared with western cultures!

The book of Job in the Bible mentions Orion, the Big Dipper and the Pleiades.

Daryl’s presentation to finish up—

Solar wind April 12

Last month saw some sunspots but disappeared a week or so ago.

He showed pictures he took of Jupiter and 2 moons March 21 and the Milky way on July 31, with Mars, Antares and Saturn.

Mars and Saturn have been in retrograde motion and have been especially bright.

He suggests subscribing to Earth and Sky.

Looking ahead--

What would we like for programs to be for next year?