February 2020 Meeting Notes

BAS Meeting Notes February 3, 2020

34 in attendance including 19 visitors! Most of the visitors were students from Brian’s class at OWU, but there were some other guests as well!

Minutes of January meeting as posted online by Denise were approved—and thanks very much to Lynne for actually taking the notes at the meeting!

Treasurer’s Report - Evan Zorn:

Beginning balance Jan. 1, 2020 $3310.66.

No expenses in January

Received $100.00 in dues

Ending balance Jan. 31, 2020 $3410.66

Dues are due if you haven’t yet paid; see Evan

Committee Reports:

Astronomical League news and activities – Kristi. Kristi was not present but Craig mentioned the Astronomics Sketching Award deadline of March 31.

Youth club (BYA) news - Rick Bryant. Rick was not present but Abby filled in for him—Andrew gave a great presentation at the January meeting, a biography of stars, and Abby discussed the upcoming library display case.

Library Display - Abby – Update:

A planning session was held at Eggberts January 18. The library display will feature BAS history; telescopes and other scientific displays; banners and laminated pictures; and a BYA display including youth drawings of astronomical images that Lashawn has posted.

Next planning meeting at noon on February 22 at Eggberts in the Starbucks area.

Member pictures are wanted to display on wall and a banner and video loop.

If you exhibit any physical items, be sure to put your name and phone number on them.

Trial setup at Our Savior church at noon March 14.

Old Business:

Letterhead and name badges - Rick Bryant – deferred this as he is awaiting feedback from BAS Board on desired name badge layout.

New Business:

Need Astronomical League coordinator to replace Kristi

Need web wizard and social media wrangler to replace Derek

Derek will be leaving for college soon. Kristi has been his backup web wizard and social media wrangler, and she won’t be able to continue doing this ongoing. She also won’t be able to continue as Astronomical League coordinator very much longer either. We need for volunteers to step up to take on these important jobs for our Club!

Other new business:

John Blaesi is looking into grants that we can receive from ConocoPhillips and Phillips 66 based on volunteer hours we do as part of public outreach. For now, start keeping track of the time you spend working on public outreach projects such as the library display and public star parties.

It was also pointed out that matching dollar donations from ConocoPhillips, Phillips 66, or both may be possible.

Astronomy News and Events--

Gary Nealis OLLI course on NASA starting Feb. 11:

Gary will be giving an OLLI course on NASA starting February 11 for six weeks, on Tuesdays from 1-3 p.m. at the east side Arvest bank. Need register to attend. Cost is 40.00 to join OLLI if you aren’t already a member for this year, and 25.00 for the class. Gary worked many years at NASA on the communications and tracking team and in Mission Control.

Abby’s Cassini – Saturn Planetarium Show World Premiere Feb. 18:

Abby will be giving her world premiere of her Cassini - Saturn presentation on February 18 at the Jenks Planetarium. This is the premiere of her pre-recorded planetarium show, just as it will be used in future by other planetariums! Cost is $5. You can register online:

http://www.astrotulsa.com

https://www.jenkscommunityed.com/class-calendar&a=view&class_id=2218

Tickets at the door will be $7.00.

Craig said that he plans to go down early on the day around 12 or 1 to have lunch, visit the aquarium for 2-3 hours, then have dinner around 5 somewhere before the planetarium show at 6:30. Abby said the group would also have ice cream together somewhere afterwards.

Craig asked that if anyone is interested in going down early with him, to send him an email or call him to let him know.

Apollo 13 50th Anniversary celebration April 4 at the Cosmosphere:

Registration begins February 24 for Cosmosphere members

Denise has ordered an Apollo 13 free kit of information from them

Member photos – none tonight

Upcoming astronomical events:

MSRAL - Tulsa June 12-14 http://msral.org

Club Events--

In December Denise attended the grand opening of the new police substation at Tri County. She introduced herself to an officer she’s seen around town. She will email him when we plan a star party at Tri County so any officers coming off shift at 10 p.m. could stop by and see what we’re looking at through telescopes!

Star parties: Rick Buck

Wayside school - February 15, 7-9 p.m., will set up at 6 p.m. The focus of this star party will be on classic objects including Venus and deep sky objects. Rick Buck will bring two telescopes and he needs 2-3 more telescopes and volunteers. Shelly, the organizer at Wayside, asked Denise if she had a sample publicity flyer to send Shelly to customize for her school; Denise sent her the latest Tri County flyer. No one at a school has ever done this before!

Star Party for Dewey School – TBA

Star Party for St. Lukes – TBA

Betelgeuse – TBD

Sunfest - May 29-31. Save the date for now; at the April meeting Denise will start soliciting volunteers to man the shifts. Denise has already sent in our application form and fee.

Do we want to do a summer solstice event June 20? Didn’t really discuss this

A Club member says that he knows of a Meade telescope on sale for $600.00. It’s not a GPS scope—totally manual.

Astronomy news—Abby:

• • She showed six Hubble images of a background quasar and its host galaxy.

  • President Trump signed the bill that created the sixth branch of our Armed Forces, the Space Force, into law in December.

  • Black holes may be key to how binary stars merge

  • China’s lander on the Moon continues to release large quantities of data

  • She showed a recent striking image on APOD of rare nacreous clouds over Sweden. Nacreous clouds are also known as mother-of-pearl clouds. They’re a type of polar stratospheric cloud and form when unusually cold temperatures in the lower stratosphere form ice crystals. These clouds can diffract sunlight after sunset and before dawn.

  • Phosphorus—an element in DNA and cell membranes of all living organisms—may have been delivered to us by comets. Scientists have found evidence of phosphorous monoxide in comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

  • The world’s most powerful solar telescope is now operating! The 4-metre Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope is looking at the Sun in amazing detail. Images released on January 29 show patterns of superheated gas churning on the Sun’s surface. Bright “cells” represent the plasma rising from deeper within the star. Darker borders between the “cells” show where plasma is cooling and sinking.

  • Betelgeuse: Betelgeuse may become a supernova, but that is probably something like 100,000 years in the future. LIGO/VIRGO detected a burst of gravitational waves on January 14 from a region near Betelgeuse, but there’s probably not a connection between those waves and the star.

  • She showed an image of the recently-discovered Radcliffe wave. This is a wave-shaped gaseous structure in the Milky Way, composed of interconnected stellar nurseries. It is 9000 light years long, 400 light years wide and 500 light years away from us at its closest point.

Tonight’s Program: Deep Thoughts on Astrophotography by Rick Buck

First of all he acknowledged the help and support he has received from many BAS members; he especially cited Rick Bryant.

Why is astrophotography popular? There are a number of reasons—

Appreciate the beauty of the universe

Reconnect with nature and the out of doors

Enjoy a technical challenge

Share its benefits with others, especially youth

Feel inspired!

The amount of technical knowledge you need for astrophotography depends on what you want to do with it. Anyone can do astrophotography on just about any budget. You can spend as much time and money on it as you like.

Astrophotography does require patience and persistence. It’s good if you find satisfaction in small successes; exponential increases in commitment and upgrades are needed for linear increases in quality. Experience is built more often from failure than success. Astrophotography involves continuous learning and technological development. Start small and go from there!

You need to choose your targets in astrophotography. Categorize them. Criteria include season of visibility, declination range, angular size, focal length range, location—i.e. circumpolar vs. towards the south. Some types of deep-space objects such as certain galaxies and nebulae can be more readily seen in a particular season of the year.

You also want to maximize your viewing window. For example, your viewing window could begin when an object rises to be about 25-30 degrees above the eastern horizon about 30 minutes past sunset. Then you can use Stellarium to determine when an object will drop below 25-30 degrees in altitude in the west as it sets. You can also use Stellarium to define lunar interference with viewing an object.

You will want to anticipate any limitations there may be at your viewing site, such as obstacles (trees, buildings, etc.) or brightness.

Rick showed us an example of his astrophotography with images he has taken of the Trifid Nebula. Using color in image processing will give less resolution than monochromatic processing.

Rick uses the Telescopius website. Other tools for sky conditions include astrospheric online (which also has an app) and clear sky chart (similar but slightly less data). There are also lots of books and periodicals, such as Sky and Telescope and Astronomy. Other software programs include Stellarium (has 3D maps of eclipses),

timeanddate.com, Dark Sky Map website and others.

Rick then finished us by showing us a number of his great images---nebulae, globular clusters, galaxies, planets, transits, and eclipses. Quite a show!

Next meeting - March 2. Program TBA

Volunteers needed for upcoming meetings – see Bob Young

Ice cream at Braum’s!!!