July 2022 Meeting Notes
Bartlesville Astronomical Society Meeting Minutes
July 7, 2022
• Opening and Welcome
• Thank you to Denise Gregg for Zoom setup
• We had fifteen people in attendance, including six visitors!
• Announcements
• September meeting date: September 7 or 8? We decided to have our meeting on Thursday, September 8.
• Denise booked meeting room C for September 8 prior to our meeting, figuring this would likely be what we would select.
• Family Stargazing program for September?
• James Webb Space Telescope
• First light images on July 12 at 9:30am
• Nova program on July 13 at 8:00pm
• MSRAL zoom meeting July 12 7:00 - Open table brainstorming on getting back to normal
• Star Party - Saturday July 9 at Tri County Tech, weather permitting. Start setting up equipment at 8:30 p.m. We decided that we wouldn’t hold if skies 50% cloudy or more.
• Gary Nealis is making presentations of his days at NASA mission control.
• Sundays at 10:00 at Bambino’s
• Braum’s after the meeting
• Thoughts on loaner telescope or binoculars recommendations for 4H - Kelly Wardlaw. Kelly is based at OSU in Stillwater and is the STEM person for 4-H in Oklahoma. They would like to acquire four telescopes to use as loaner telescopes for the three 4-H regional districts in Oklahoma, plus one for the main office. They are wanting help in deciding which telescopes to purchase, setting them up and training 4-H people in how to use them. Craig advised Kelly that there may be long lead times in getting telescopes and suggested that she contact astronomy clubs in the Stillwater and Oklahoma City areas. Kelly contacted Denise initially, through a referral she got from the Bartlesville library, as we have our loaner scope there.
• Tonight’s Program
• “Hubble Space Telescope Upgrade, Repair and Reboot Missions 1997-2009” - Gary Nealis
• Last month Gary reviewed the launch of the Hubble Space telescope on Shuttle mission STS-31 in April 1990, the discovery that it didn’t work properly in June 1990, and the major repairs done on Shuttle mission STS-61 in December 1993, after which the Hubble worked!
• Some facts about the Hubble:
• It has a pointing accuracy of .007 arcsec, which is the width of a human hair one mile away.
• The Hubble has an angular discrimination of 0.05 arcsec, which is the width of two fireflies in Tokyo as seen from Washington, D.C.
• The new James Webb Telescope will be a hundred times more powerful than the Hubble!
• The Hubble is the most productive scientific instrument ever built. 715,000 scientific papers have been published as a result of the work Hubble has done.
• There are some objects that the Hubble can’t observe: the Sun, Mercury, Venus, and some stars. Observations are not done when the Hubble passes over the South Atlantic Anomaly region in the southern hemisphere as it orbits above Earth; this is due to the presence of the Van Allen radiation belts.
• The Hubble isn’t in continuous communications with us; to-do lists are uploaded in packets several times a week. After Hubble does the work, it emails users who requested the tasks. Data downloads from Hubble are proprietary for one year.
• Anyone can apply for a Hubble project. Since 1990, Hubble has done 4000 observing programs. Typically, six times the number of project applications are received each year than Hubble has time to do!
• Hubble images are copyright-free, but Hubble must be credited.
• Virtually everything that forms the Hubble has been repaired or replaced over time.
STS-82, February 11-20, 1997: Hubble upgrades were done on this mission, including replacing two spectrographs. The Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph and the Faint Object Spectrograph were replaced with the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph and the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer.
STS-95, October 9-November 6, 1998: Astronaut John Glenn, age 77, participated in this mission! This mission validated components for the 3rd Hubble servicing mission, and over 80 non-Hubble-related experiments were done on this mission.
STS-103 December 19-26, 1999: On this mission, gyros that had failed were replaced, as well as outer insulation that had worn over time. A new computer and a spare solid- state recorder were installed. This Shuttle mission reached an orbit of 378 miles—at this altitude, you can see the curvature of the Earth. A fourth planned EVA was skipped to enable the Shuttle to return to Earth before December 31, 1999 (Y2K).
STS-109, March 1-11, 2002: An advanced camera for survey work was installed.
STS-125, May 11-23, 2009: This was the last Hubble servicing mission. The COSTAR (Corrective Optics Space Telescope Axial Replacement) which had been installed in December 1993 was replaced with the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph. A stainless-steel blanket was installed on the exterior of the Hubble. As part of the repair work done on this mission, a “black box” that had never been intended to be opened in space had to be opened. The cover plate on this black box had been fastened with 111 tiny screws which had to be removed before the box could be worked on! A new cover plate was installed that had would be much easier to remove in the future, should that ever happen. The last battery module that had been installed on the Hubble was replaced with three new batteries. A soft capture mechanism was attached to the Hubble on this mission, to enable possible docking with a future spacecraft. This mechanism could possibly be used to capture the Hubble and guide it to a re-entry to Earth at some time in the future. The Hubble is expected to continue working until some time in the late 2020’s mid 2030’s.
• Observing and Imaging Reports
• Woolaroc would like a star party—need decide on a date this fall
• Astrophotography images - Rick
• Astronomical News and Events
• John Blaesi and John Grismore—we didn’t have a specific presentation on this in order to give time to Gary for his presentation. Denise showed a recent image she had taken of Sagittarius, the Milky Way, M7 Ptolemy’s Cluster, and M8 the Lagoon Nebula; and one of the Coathanger asterism. She also pictures of thunderstorm towers and a pileus cloud that she took at the “clouded-out” star party June 25 at Tri County Tech.
• Business
• Approval of June meeting minutes and the full June treasurer’s report were not done in order to save time for Gary. Evan was not present at the meeting, but he told Denise prior to the meeting that there was no change during June from the ending balance May 31, 2022, $10,359.40.
• Committee Reports
• Astronomical League news and activities - Denise Gregg
• MSRAL - Zoom meeting next week on July 12
• ALCon - July 28-30 - Albuquerque, NM
• IDA (International Dark Sky Association) has their annual photography contest this month. IDA members received an email about it. If you would like to enter and want more details, ask Denise. Entries due by July 21.
• Youth club (BYA) news - Rick Bryant—Rick was not in attendance this evening
• FCC - Evan Zorn—Evan was not in attendance this evening
• New Business
After updating our Night Sky Network calendar with the number of people who attended our Sunfest booth, Denise was contacted by the Night Sky Network to do a brief opening presentation for the NSN Summer Social webcast on outreach on June 14. She did this, reporting both on Sunfest and the library display which preceded it! Craig estimates that 40-50 people attended this webcast.
• Adjournment
• Next meeting
• Monday, August 1 at library
• StarTrackers Astrophotography - Rick Buck
• Ice cream at Braum’s!!!
• Motion to adjourn