September 2021 Meeting Notes
Bartlesville Astronomical Society Meeting Minutes
September 9, 2021
• Opening and Welcome
• Thank you to Denise Gregg for Zoom setup
• Thanks for your participation! May want to mute unless speaking.
• Welcome guests and new members—we had 18 in attendance at this meeting. This included our guest speaker, Buddy Stefanoff with Crossroads LED, LLC; eleven guests that he invited who are not affiliated with our Club; and six Club members. The guests came from a number of states and as far away as New Zealand.
• Announcements
• Library is available for meetings!
• When do we want to meet in person? Probably will meet via Zoom for the remainder of 2021.
• Meeting room A has been booked through March for a library-sponsored exercise class. This class normally meets in Unity Square, but they have reserved meeting room A for the colder winter months. Denise Gregg has asked Denise Goff at the library to note our preference to resume using meeting room A in April. Outside groups like ours can only book meeting rooms 3 months at a time; we have meeting room C booked downstairs through December, should we decide to have in-person meetings this year.
• Thanks to John Grismore, John Blaesi, Mike Woods, and others for the Shut-in Newsletter and our regular newsletter
• Minutes of previous meeting are posted online by Denise Gregg - Approved
• Tonight’s Program
• Buddy Stefanoff - Crossroads LED
• Treasurer’s Report - Evan Zorn. Ending balance July 31, 2021 $7353.11; unchanged as of August 31, 2021.
• Dues will be due in November
• Committee Reports
• Astronomical League news and activities - Denise Gregg
• Peggy Walker is looking for photos for MSRAL website
• ALCon was August 19-21 (see below) - Wow!
• Next year meeting will be in person in Albuquerque
• Youth club (BYA) news - Rick Bryant—Rick was not in attendance this evening
• Library Display - Update
• If you have items on display, plan to pick them up at the First Christian Church later
• There are 2 levels in storage - Who is the owner?
• The library has confirmed that we have May booked for the library display.
• Denise Gregg will contact Denise Goff at the library to see if we can reserve meeting room A for Astronomy Day on Saturday, May 7, 2022.
• 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
• New Business
• Elections in October
• Nominations?
• Tulsa Girl Scouts trying to get an observatory for NASA donated telescope
• Fund raiser on September 10 at Timber Oaks - West of airport
• All adults
• Do we want to participate?
• Cassie Janssen had been our contact, but it turned out she has left the Girl Scout organization. Craig was able to make contact with another person working on the event, and she said they’d made other plans for the evening, so we wouldn’t try to participate.
• iPad donated to control new telescope
• 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
• Thanks to John Grismore, Denise Gregg, and Craig
• Let me know if you have suggestions
• Google is making some security enhancements to permissions for some files and folders Sept. 13; Denise will check these out to make sure they don’t affect our ability to view them after the enhancements go live. These changes affect some files and folders that are viewable on our website.
• Our old bvilleastro@yahoo.com email address - Used anywhere?
• Astronomy News and Events
• Neil DeGrasse Tyson in Tulsa October 4 at Cox Business Center
• Tickets are somewhat pricey
• Change our meeting date?
• Any interest in going as a group?
• Astronomy News - Abby Bollenbach
• Abby is making presentations for Astronomy magazine.
• Latest are “The Voyager Missions” and “What are Quasars?”
• View at http://astronomy.com select the Videos tab
• ALCON 2021 - August 19-21
• Virtual event - enroll at https://www.alconvirtual.org - Free
• David Levy, Jocelyn Bell Burnell, David Eicher, and others
• This was a excellent meeting. Craig hopes they continue virtual conventions.
• Videos online
• IDA - Capture the Dark contest
• Did anyone enter? John Blaesi entered an image.
• Astronomy Club of Tulsa
• September 10 - InPerson at Jenks Planetarium 7:00pm
• Lunar Impact Craters
• https://astrotulsa.com
• John Land - Anything to announce? John didn’t attend this meeting.
• OKC Astronomy Club
• September 10 - in person meeting at Science Museum Oklahoma
• Okie-Tex October 1-9 - registration now open at http://www.okie-tex.com
• Cosmosphere
• Remodeling the German exhibit area
• Celebrating the 60th Anniversary of Liberty Bell 7
• Special Liberty Bell exhibit
• Museum Day September 18
• https://cosmo.org
• Kalamazoo Astronomical Society Zoom meetings - kasonline.org
• Meeting is September 10 6pm via zoom
• History of KAS - 85 Years of Looking Up
• Astrophotography Special Interest group
• September 17 7:00pm
• Adam Block - APOD contributor - 98 images
• Register at https://kasonline.org
• Meteor showers
• Perseids - August 11-13 - 50/hour
• Four people went to the Osage Hills State Park entrance on August 11 and saw some good meteors, although there was a lot of residual smoke high in the sky.
• Upcoming astronomical events
• Jupiter and Saturn
• VOYAGE - 1/10 billionth scale Solar System coming to Broken Arrow
• When??
• 2000 foot path
• Sun located at Creekwood Elementary 1301 E Albany
• Pluto at Broken Arrow High School
• Club Events
• Star parties: Rick Buck
• Star Party for Dewey School - TBA
• St. Lukes - TBA
• Wayside school - TBA
• Sunfest has suggested that we participate in BOOfest; we would have had to supply up to several thousand treats for youngsters, so we declined this activity. We have also been invited to participate in another BOOfest youth event (making fall-themed crafts) and we decided not to participate in this event either. Denise will let the Sunfest organizers know.
• Osage Hills First Light - Next year!
• John Blaesi - upcoming events
• OHSP?
• Observing reports
• Jupiter’s lunar eclipses star party on August 9 and 19?
• We didn’t try to meet at Our Savior as this viewing was to the south, not the west. Denise didn’t actually see any “eclipsing” but moons were very close.
• OHSP - 21.5 on SQM means magnitude 6.5 to naked eye
• Went to OHSP a few times. Great views of Milky Way
• Member photos
• Peggy Walker is looking for photos for MSRAL website.
• Tonight’s Program
• Buddy Stefanoff – VP of Engineering, Crossroads LED, LLC, “Preserving our Dark Skies”
Buddy discussed what light pollution is—the introduction of artificial light into the night sky—and its primary cause, streetlights. Today, 80% of the U.S. population can’t see the Milky Way. Blue wavelengths of light emitted by LED fixtures are a leading contributor to light pollution and sky glow.
High pressure sodium (HPS) streetlights emit a 2000 kelvin diffused amber light, and minimal blue light, and are the most common streetlights used today.
LED streetlights have a more intense and directly focused beam angle, which lead to intense glare and light trespassing issues. Blue light is scattered in all directions by the atmosphere and partially scattered back to the ground, producing a diffuse glow that can be seen miles away.
Replacing HPS streetlights with 3000 kelvin LED’s will considerably increase both a city’s and the surrounding communities’ light pollution and sky glow by at least 100%. Buddy recommends that cities should consider new ordinances and specifications that require LED street lights to be at the lowest possible kelvin temperature and meet Dark Sky specific performance standards.
Advanced Dark Sky certified LED streetlights utilize Phosphor Converted Amber (PCA) LED’s at the same 2000 kelvin temperature as HPS street lights.
Advanced Narrow Band Amber (NBA) LED luminaires have the same narrow kelvin spectral emission as Low-Pressure Sodium (LPS) lamps with no blue-light emission.
Crossroads LED uses its proprietary dark-sky-compliant Astrophile roadway lighting system to reduce light pollution.
Buddy discussed some case studies of several cities that attempted to reduce light pollution, with varying results. Flagstaff, Arizona was one of the success stories; it was the first designated dark sky city.
Buddy emphasized that third party testing is critical to the success of light pollution reducing efforts.
Buddy also reviewed a Rice (University) Kinder Institute for Urban Research report, that found that areas of north Houston that were poorly illuminated had less crime as compared to more brightly lit downtown.
• Adjournment
• Next meeting - October 4
• Neil Degrasse Tyson in Tulsa on October 4. We may meet on a different date.
• TBD - Betty Keim interested in another meeting (in person this fall)
• Volunteers needed for upcoming meetings - Bob Young
• Thanks!
• Ice cream at virtual Braum’s!!!
• Motion to adjourn