September 2019

September 5, 2019 Meeting

Attendance: 13 people, including 1 guest who has visited before.

Treasurer's Report (Evan Zorn):

Beginning balance August 1, 2019 $3,265.74

Income: (none this month) -0-

Expenses: Reimburse Denise for printing <51.29>

Reimburse Colleen for BYA arts & crafts supplies <113.26>

Ending balance August 31, 2019 $3,101.19

Club Business:

• Denise's notes from the August meeting were approved.

• In the future, when the library is closed the first Monday of the month, we'll plan to schedule our meeting on the following Monday. (We actually discussed doing this at the last meeting...and it didn't get into the meeting notes! We asked everyone at the August meeting if they would prefer meeting on Thursday the same week or the next Monday, and the consensus was to meet the following Monday. Several people had other standing commitments the first Thursday of the month.)

• Annual donation to First Christian Church: Now that we are using storage space at the church, we took a vote and moved that we should donate $100.00 to the First Christian Church for letting us use two rooms at their facility without charge. We would plan to donate this amount every year. Denise will make up a document describing the donation and send to Evan Zorn so that we would have a record of what this payment is for.

Recap of Recent Club Events:

• August Outreach cancelled due to weather: The August 23 star parties at St. John's School and in Tulsa with the Girl Scouts were both cancelled due to weather. Denise brought up a "lesson learned" from this: we had printed a bunch of copies of the August star chart to hand out to people at these star parties. In the end we weren't able to use them because it was late in the month and no other events were planned. What we decided to do in the future was not print a lot of monthly star charts in advance for outdoor events, in case they do get cancelled. Maybe just print 2-3 for our event table and leave it at that.

Upcoming Club Events:

• Social get-together: At Braum's (south location) after tonight's meeting.

• Next meeting: Monday, October 7, with program by Virgil on Life in the Universe, in Meeting Room A (second floor) at the Bartlesville Public Library.

• Future Club meetings: Volunteers needed to do presentations. Contact Bob Young if interested in presenting.

• September 6 Outreach Event at St. John's School: Rescheduled by Rick Buck after August 23 event was cancelled due to weather. Will set up telescopes and binoculars on tripods in the playground area of St. John's School at 8th and Keeler. Rick Buck will be there by 7:30 to set things up. The event is scheduled to start at 9:00 pm. All members are welcome to come, bring telescope or binoculars, or otherwise assist in the event.

• October 5 Astronomy Day (John Blaesi):

  • We now have our four needed speakers for the indoor event at the library: Abby on constellations, Denise on meteor showers, Rick Buck TBD and Bob Young TBD.

  • We have the library's meeting room A booked from 12:30 pm-5 pm. Will allow an hour for each speaker's event, starting at 1 pm. Can use any filler time to tell people about the Club.

  • We would like to have four types of telescopes at the event: solar, refractor, reflector and Dobsonian. If anyone would like to bring one, get in touch with John Blaesi.

  • The telescope we've donated to the library is reserved for us to use that day.

  • We could also use binoculars on tripods for comparison; Denise will bring hers. Our returning Club visitor pointed out that not everyone has or can afford to have a telescope, so it will be important to highlight binoculars at Club events in addition to just telescopes.

  • The BYA will also have a table set up for this event.

  • We will need to have volunteers at the library to circulate through the library, greet people, explain telescopes and tell them about our Club. Please volunteer!

• October 5 Public Star Party for Astronomy Day:

  • We will also need to have plenty of people on hand at the Astronomy Day public star party at Tri County Tech. In addition to people who bring telescopes and binoculars, we will need to have people on hand to greet people at our welcome table and circulate around to show people constellations. Please plan to volunteer at this event!

  • Denise brought up at Braum's after the meeting that there are two competing events on October 5, the Indian Summer Festival in Dewey and the OK Mozart annual Oktoberfest downtown. In addition to the usual publicity we do, it would be good to have something in the newspaper in advance about our event to help us attract people, especially in light of these other events. John will work on an article draft to give to Denise, who knows someone at the newspaper who might be able to help us get it published. We also discussed possibly having a reporter/photographer attend our event to write up something afterward.

• October 26 Club Star Party: At the Bolinger's, details to be announced later.

• November 11 Mercury Transit: Club members will set up telescopes at the library and invite the public.

• November 22 Club Star Party: At remote site TBD.

• Event planning for the future:

  • Craig brought up the idea of having another planetarium show at the Tulsa Air and Space Museum planetarium. He asked if we would prefer to have it in fall or spring. Denise suggested spring as we didn't have much luck with spring star parties this year due to weather, but a spring indoor event would work!

  • Craig also brought up the idea of scheduling a visit to the Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, Kansas. This could either be a very long day (takes 4 hours to get there, with rest stop) or more likely a weekend trip, either go on Friday after work or very early Saturday morning, and return Sunday. Rick Bryant told Craig that 20 youth families would be interested. Most of the people in attendance at our meeting tonight were interested. The Cosmosphere's space camp for youth is undergoing some renovation work for the next three months. The museum itself is also starting some renovation work, so this would likely be scheduled for some time next year rather than this fall.

  • Craig also mentioned that the Cosmosphere is planning an event to mark the 50th anniversary of Apollo 13 next year. A date has not been set yet, but it will be sometime next April and Jim Lovell and Fred Haise will attend. They're not sure yet if any of the Mission Control team will come. Will have more information in October or November.

Upcoming Astronomy Events:

• Okie-Tex Star Party, September 21-29, in the panhandle of Oklahoma, sponsored by the Oklahoma City Astronomy Club. Rick Buck and Rick Bryant will be attending along with some members and families of BYA.

Storage Committee Update (John Grismore):

• John Grismore encouraged everyone who still might have Club items at their home to get them into the storage area by contacting John Grismore or John Blaesi or Craig. Work to catalog everything is ongoing, but we'd like to get everything that belongs to the Club in the storage facility at the church.

• The 10-inch Dobsonian telescope we have needs some work.

Astronomical League News (Kristi Herrman): Kristi was not at the meeting, but she told us in advance there was no AL news this month.

Bartian Youth Astronomers Update (Rick Bryant): The September BYA meeting will be on star party etiquette and safety, in advance of the Okie-Tex Star Party. Five to six youth members and families are planning to attend Okie-Tex.

Other Announcements and Discussion:

• Library Display: Abby was not at meeting and there have been no more updates at this time. This is scheduled for next April.

• Business Card Design: We are ready to print Rick Bryant's business card design. John Grismore asked if the QR codes on the back could be "right side up" rather than "on their sides", but Craig said that had been tried and wouldn't work in the space available. Overall we like the design and layout, and we will proceed to get 1000 cards printed at a cost of about $20.00 before the October 5 Astronomy Day.

• Girl Scout Event:

  • Denise was contacted earlier this week by someone on the Board of the Girl Scouts to see if we would want to bring telescopes to their annual fundraiser outdoor dinner on September 7 at Timber Oaks. (We did this two years ago at Prairie Song.) We decided not to do this, as time was short and we hadn't visited this facility before to see the space available to set up telescopes. There was going to be a live band and dancing at this event and we didn't know if we'd be able to set up a star party far enough away from the music and lights.

  • We did decide that it would be worth touring the facility if the Girl Scouts plan to use this facility in the future; Denise will work on this.

• Loaner Telescope: Craig suggested that the Club consider buying a new telescope that could be loaned out. (The one we donated to the library last year is constantly checked out.)

Member Astrophotos:

• Rick Buck had a couple new astrophotos to share but since we had just these two, it was decided to wait until next month to show his latest images.

• Please share your astrophotos with the Club by sending them to bvilleastro@gmail.com.

Abby's Astronomy News Compilation: Abby was not present, so none this month.

Tonight's Program: Meteor Showers by Denise Gregg

• The slides from Denise's presentation may be viewed here.

• The presentation included definitions of meteors, meteorites and meteoroids; the science behind meteor showers; explanation of the colors of meteors; instances where meteors can be heard (rarely); how to observe meteor showers; a run-through of the more prolific annual meteor showers; and historical observations of meteor showers and legends surrounding them, especially the Perseid and Leonid meteor showers. At the end, Denise gave some information on historical observations of meteorites and how they were used in the past (whether or not the people using them actually knew where they came from!).