Bartlesville Astronomical Society Meeting Minutes

November 7, 2022

• Opening and Welcome

• Thank you to Denise Gregg for Zoom setup

• Nine members in attendance this evening plus six guests, one of whom joined our Club this evening! One guest was from the Oklahoma City club.

• Announcements

• Star Party – Friday, November 11 or Saturday, November 12 at Jo Allyn Lowe Park. First choice date is November 11, weather permitting. Plan to set up at 6 p.m., be out of the park by 11 p.m.

• We didn’t have a Club star party in October due to cloudy weather on both intended nights, October 14 and 15.

• Debbie Neece - Article in the Bartlesville Monthly Magazine (bmonthly) on the BAS Moonwatch program in 1958.

• Thanks to John Grismore and Ron Carman for their insight!

• Braum’s after the meeting

• Andy Dossett, photographer for the Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise, along with Cooper and Mill Brewery, is hosting their second annual photography contest. Entries must be submitted by December 16 and there are twenty categories; you can submit one picture per category, and they don’t have to be taken in 2022. Details at https://www.pictheville.com/

• Tonight’s Program

• North American Tales About the Skies - Betty Keim. Betty presented three interesting Native American stories about the night sky from the following books:

• The Story of the Milky Way : A Cherokee Tale by Joseph Bruchac and Gayle Ross, illustrated by Virginia A. Stroud

• The Lost Children, a story about the Pleiades by Paul Goble

• How the Stars Fell Into the Sky, a Navajo Legend by Jerrie Oughton

• Observing and Imaging Reports—We didn’t have any reports for this month.

• Program for Home Schooled kids – Rick Bryant is working on this with Jessica of a large home-school group.

• Astronomical News and Events

• John Blaesi and John Grismore

• Total lunar eclipse November 8. totality at 5:00 a.m., weather permitting

• Next total eclipse March 14, 2025 at 2:00 a.m.

• Leonids meteors - peak on night of November 17-18, weather permitting

• Craig showed a video of a Falcon 9 Launch that transited the sun and moon. In the process, it created Kelvin-Helmholtz sound waves that distorted the view of the moon.

• Hipparchus’ Star Catalogue. Hipparchus documented the magnitude, right ascension and declination of stars.

• Almagest - Ptolemy

• We only received one request for an Astronomical League calendar so we didn’t place a group order—6 calendars minimum would have been needed for a group order.

• Business

• Minutes of September and October meetings as posted online by Denise Gregg were approved.

• Treasurer’s Report - Evan Zorn. This report covers both September and October. Evan was not present at the September meeting, and we didn’t take time for a business meeting in October since we had Dr. Antony Stark as our guest speaker.

• Ending July balance was $10,249.40.

• We had a deposit of $182.06 in August, no spending, so ending balance for August 31 was $10,431.46.

• In September, we had a Benevity donation of $1,356.50, plus these three expenses:

• Zoom annual fee, $74.95

• USPS for PO box annual fee, $166.00

• State Farm insurance for annual insurance policy, $338.00.

• Ending balance September 30 was $11,209.01.

• No deposits or expenses in October, so ending balance October 31 was $11209.01.

• Dues for 2023: can begin paying now for 2023.

• Single adult membership—$25.00

• Family of two—$30.00

• Family of three or more—$40.00

• Committee Reports

• Astronomical League news and activities - Denise Gregg

• MSRAL - Tulsa June 9-11, 2023

• Volunteers?

• Denise and Craig have been attending Zoom meetings with MSRAL, working on revisions to bylaws. MSRAL is looking for officers interested in being on the MSRAL board for 2023.

• Youth club (BYA) news - Rick Bryant. Rick was not in attendance this evening. At the October meeting 24 people were present! That’s the most at a regular BYA meeting since before the pandemic. Summer Lamb is doing a survey of those on the BYA email list to see which night of the week would be a good one for regular BYA meetings, and to solicit a preferred date for a November/December combined meeting.

• Library Display: May 2023 is booked. We will have the same theme as last year and can add new images as we get them.

• FCC - Evan Zorn

• Should we find alternate storage?

• What to do with old telescopes?

• Evan and John Blaesi are looking into this. They are first doing an inventory of what is there now in the two FCC storage rooms.

• Old Business—need someone to do Facebook for the Club and also website administrator

• New Business

• Volunteer grants—if you work for, or are retired from, COP or P66 and have worked hours for the Club in 2022, volunteer grant requests need to be initiated soon.

• TASM Planetarium? Do something early next year in February or March?

• Officer elections for 2023: The incumbent officers for 2022 have agreed to be nominated for their current positions for 2023, and no other nominations were received.

• They are: President—Craig Brockmeier

• Vice President—Rick Buck

• Treasurer—Evan Zorn

• Secretary—Denise Gregg

• At-large—Duane Perkins and John Blaesi

• Denise will email a ballot, like she has done the last two years, so that those who may not be able to attend in person can vote ahead of time. She will also telephone two members who have infrequent or no access to email to get their votes ahead of the December meeting.

• Night Sky Network Eclipse Ambassador program where you mentor an undergraduate college student in preparation for the April 2024 total solar eclipse—if interested, contact Craig

• Other new business?

• Adjournment

• Any other announcements or questions?

• Next meeting

• Monday, December 5 at library

• Rick Buck will show images taken at Okie-Tex

• January 2023 Club meeting will be on Thursday, January 5, in meeting room A. (The library is closed January 2 for New Year’s.) Denise will present on “A Year’s Worth of Meteor Showers”.

• Thanks!

• Ice cream at Braum’s!!!

• Motion to adjourn