December 2020 Meeting Notes

Bartlesville Astronomical Society Meeting Minutes

December 7, 2020

• • • We had 10 people in attendance, including two guests. One was Ronald Carman, who was a charter member of the BAS when it was set up as a “Moonwatch” organization in 1958! Ronald was then in high school at College High in Bartlesville.

    • Thank you to Denise for Zoom setup

    • Announcements

      • • Library still unavailable for meetings. We will continue to have meetings via Zoom, through January at least.

• • • • Thanks to John Grismore, John Blaesi, Mike Woods, and others for the Shut-in Newsletter and our regular newsletter

• • Minutes of previous meeting as posted online by Denise were approved.

  • Treasurer’s Report – Evan:

    • • Ending balance October 31: $4963.92.

      • No expenses

      • Received three voluntary dues payments from members totaling $75.00

      • Ending balance November 30: $5038.92

  • Committee Reports

• • • Astronomical League news and activities – Denise: The 2021 AlCon conference is scheduled for August 4-6 in Albuquerque. Denise has already forwarded an email with details to date to the members. Registration is expected to be available January 1 and there will also be a youth component to the event, AlCon Jr. (The youth will make telescopes.)

    • Youth club (BYA) news - Rick Bryant—Rick was not in attendance this evening

      • Library Display – Update—still on track for April 2021. If you need anything in the meantime from the storage room at First Christian Church, let Craig know.

      • Dark Sky committee - John Blaesi: We made sky quality measurements at OHSP. 21.3 or better. The Sky Quality Survey has been started and light dome photographs have been made. Volunteers will be needed to do more measurements in February/March. If you would like to volunteer to help, email bvilleastro+darksky@gmail.com

• • New Business

    • • Need Astronomical League coordinator; Denise is filling in

      • Need web wizard and social media wrangler; Denise is filling in

      • Denise has written a manual/cookbook for web administration - Thanks!

      • Need someone with Facebook and Twitter skills

      • Will work on website migration from Classic Google Sites to New Google Sites next year

• • • Dues for 2021: Current memberships extended for 2021 without paying more dues, although we will be glad to accept them if you would like to pay them!

      • Adult $25

      • Student $10

      • Family $30 for 2, $40 for 3 or more

      • Mail checks to: Bartlesville Astronomical Society

      • PO Box 302

      • Bartlesville, OK 74005

    • The Club will be deleting the Club’s old bvilleastro@yahoo.com email address, which is still active, even though the Club has been actively using a Gmail address for some years. We ask all members to please check to see if you have any accounts of your own, such as a Flickr account, which may have the old Club Yahoo email address listed. If you do, please change it to the Club Gmail address, which is bvilleastro@gmail.com. Until we actually delete the Yahoo email address, we can pay about $12.00 a year to continue to have any emails sent to it auto-forwarded to our Gmail address. Denise will check into how to do that, and let Evan know.

• • Astronomy News and Events

    • • Astronomy News - Abby Bollenbach – Abby was not in attendance, but she has been making presentations for Astronomy magazine. Her latest three are on “The Science of Star Trek”, “Cosmic Distances”, and “Gravitational Waves” - View at http://astronomy.com Videos

• • • Astronomy Club of Tulsa is meeting on December 8. The program will be The Last Stargazers - Emily Levesque— check it out on youtube.com

    • Kalamazoo Astronomical Society Zoom meetings

      • January 9, February 6 Virtual viewing sessions using a 20” PlaneWave telescope in Arizona

      • Introduction to Astronomy - January 12 - 2 days a week for 12 weeks $150

      • Introduction to Amateur Astronomy - January 23 - 5 sessions one every 2 weeks

      • Need to register online!

    • Arecibo radio telescope collapse - December 1 built in 1963

    • Hayabusa2 returned sample from Ryugu asteroid Sunday Dec 6

      • Launch 12/3/2014, rendezvous 6/27/2018, return 12/6/2020

    • Geminids – night of December 13

    • Jupiter/Saturn conjunction - December 21 - closest since 1228. The Club may have a virtual viewing session.

    • Texas Star Party - May 2-9 near Fort Davis. If you would like to attend, you need to submit a registration/reservation request for to enter the drawing which will determine who can attend before January 22, 2021. Only 300 people can attend. You need to enter the drawing even if you plan to stay off-site in other accommodations. To see what changes they have made in light of COVID-19, see https://texasstarparty.org/coronavirus-and-tsp/ To register, see https://texasstarparty.org/get-started/ Find their latest news at https://texasstarparty.org/news/

    • Member photos—no member photos this evening

• • Club Events

• • • Star parties: Rick Buck

      • Star Party for Dewey School - TBA

      • St. Lukes - TBA

      • Wayside school - TBA

      • Osage Hills First Light - Will we have it? No word yet.

      • John Blaesi presented to the OKC astronomy club in November on the Dark Sky Site application plan for Osage Hills. This was a very successful presentation and he was even contacted afterward from someone with the Texas State Park rangers who attended the meeting!

      • Presentation to ACT?

    • Observing reports: We discussed recent observations of Mercury as well as Jupiter and Saturn.

    • Tonight’s Program: Telescope tips for viewing planets - Denise

• • Adjournment

    • • Next meeting - January 4; program TBD. Volunteers needed for upcoming meetings – see Bob Young

• • • Ice cream at virtual Braum’s!!!