April 2021 Meeting Notes

Bartlesville Astronomical Society Meeting Minutes

April 4, 2021

• Opening and Welcome

• Thank you to Denise Gregg for Zoom setup

• Thanks for your participation! May want to mute unless speaking.

• 8 in attendance this evening, including one guest

• Announcements

• Library still unavailable for meetings

• We will continue to have meetings via Zoom, through May

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

• John Grismore has created 52 shut-in newsletters!!!

• Minutes of previous meeting are posted online by Denise Gregg - Approved

• Treasurer’s Report - Evan Zorn: Same balance as end of February--$5000.83. No income or expenses in March 2021.

• Dues—can still pay

• Committee Reports

• Astronomical League news and activities - Denise Gregg. No news from the Astronomical League this month, but Denise did see that the MSRAL conference that was to have been June 4-6 has been cancelled due to COVID-19.

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

• Library Display - Update

• Abby, Craig, Denise, Evan, and John set up the display from 9:00 until 5:00 on April 1.

• Take a look!

• Need people to help transport and take down the display on April 30 [This has been changed to May 26 or a date close to that, as the library asked if we could continue our display into May, as the group that had been scheduled for May had to cancel at the last minute.]

• Need 6-7 people to help

• Think we’ll pack up everything in the display and transport to the church for sorting

• If you have items on display, plan to pick them up at the First Christian Church later

• Will probably have Zoom meeting to coordinate the removal of the display

• 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—no other old business discussed

• New Business

• We received a donation of telescope parts and a book from Malcolm Joyce

• Interest in making a telescope?

• We received a donation of a Celestron Nexstar Evolution 9.25” telescope from Mary Grove

• John Blaesi is evaluating it

• Need to replace the star diagonal

• 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

• Website migration from classic to new google sites is underway

• John Grismore, Denise Gregg, and myself

• Club Survey - John Grismore

• bvilleastro@yahoo.com email address - Used anywhere?

• Astronomy News and Events

• Astronomy News - Abby Bollenbach: Abby is making presentations for Astronomy magazine.

• Latest are “Pluto’s Icy Heart” and “What are Pulsars?”

• View at http://astronomy.com select the Videos tab

• Perseverance on Mars

• First helicopter flight this week!

• https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020 has images

• Astronomy Club of Tulsa - April 20, 7:00

• “James Webb Space Telescope” - Kelly Lepo

• https://astrotulsa.com

• OKC Astronomy Club April 9 at 7:00

• Topic to be announced

• http://www.okcastroclub.com

• Cosmosphere

• Liberty Bell heading to Sao Paulo, Brazil in June

• Astronauts vs Cosmonauts - April 15 - 9:00 via Zoom

• Sixtieth anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s flight - April 12, 1961

• Kalamazoo Astronomical Society Zoom meetings - kasonline.org

• “Putting Together the Pieces of the Milky Way - Now with Pictures!” - Timothy Beers

• April 9 - 7:00pm EST

• Introduction to Amateur Astronomy - April 6 - $150

• Need to register online at https://kasonline.org

• Meteor showers

• April 14-30 - Lyrids - Peak on night of April 21, weather permitting

• AlCor 2021 August 4 in Albuquerque

• Texas Star Party - May 2-9

• Club Events

• Sunfest - June 4-6. Need to sign up next month - Denise

• Star parties: Rick Buck

• Star Party for Dewey School - TBA

• St. Lukes - TBA

• Wayside school - TBA

• Osage Hills First Light - Next year!

• John Blaesi – events

• We had a Messier Marathon with social distancing at Osage Hills March 7. 3 people came. Saw 23 Messier objects plus Asteroid Vesta, NGC 2362 and 2451, plus Mars and a considerable number of constellations!

• Observing reports

• OHSP - 21.5 on SQM means magnitude 6.5 to naked eye

• OHSP observing next week?

• Vesta opposition was March 3 in Leo

• Magnitude 6.2? 99.8% illuminated

• Spotted Vesta asteroid in Leo

• Tonight’s Program: View the library video created by Abby and Lashawn that is on display at the library

• Adjournment

• Next meeting - May 3 topic TBD

• Volunteers needed for upcoming meetings - Bob Young