February 2023 Meeting Notes

Bartlesville Astronomical Society Meeting Minutes

February 6, 2023

• Opening and Welcome

•     Thank you to Denise Gregg for Zoom setup

• We had 20 people in attendance this evening!  17 in person, 3 on Zoom.  14 members and 6 visitors, including our guest presenter and his wife. 

• Announcements

•    Sonny Manley - Mars Occultation - January 30, 2023

•    https://www.astrobin.com/76wkyy/0/

•    Denise showed camera pictures she took of Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF).

•    Anyone planning to go somewhere for the solar eclipse?  Still think not a group trip for our Club—people will arrange to go on their own.

• Observing and Imaging Reports

•    Kalamazoo remote telescope viewing sessions - February 11

• https://kasonline.org/files/OVS-Flyer.pdf

•    Register to attend:  https://kasonline.org/viewing.html

•    “Automated Imaging with NINA:  The Features that Make it a Killer App”  Lloyd Simons - Feb 17 - 7:00pm

•    Nighttime Imaging ’N Astronomy

• Astronomical News and Events

• Virgil Reese didn’t attend this evening.

• Business

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

•    Treasurer’s Report - Evan Zorn

•     Dues for 2023 due now if you haven’t yet paid.

•     Club financials:

•     Ending balance Dec. 31, 2022: $11,414.01.

•     Reimbursement check of $385.30 to Denise for expenses for library display and Sunfest for 2022

•     Dues received $30

•     Ending balance January 31, 2023:  $11,058.71.

•     Denise reported that Amazon Smile is stopping in February.

•    Committee Reports

•    Astronomical League news and activities - Denise Gregg

•    MSRAL - Tulsa June 9-11, 2023

•    Volunteers?

•    Meetings with MSRAL for bylaws

•    25 people in MSRAL (Club presidents and others) worked on this

•    The proposed by-laws will be available in March

•    Email will be sent for member comments and approval

•    Final voting will be at the MSRAL convention in June

•    Denise also said that we need a new social media person for our Club to do Facebook and Twitter (Facebook, at least).  We a Club member who has a Facebook account (and preferably Twitter also) to volunteer to do this. 

•    Denise also said that the NSN is offering a free expert guest speaker program again this year and we have asked for this, and requested June as first choice month since Sunfest would be right before our June meeting and we could promote the guest speaker at Sunfest..  Second choice April, third choice May.

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

•    Library Display

•    May 2023.  Denise asked if any particular date in February would be good for a kickoff meeting; no specific dates were “not good”.  She asked if people preferred to meet in person or via Zoom and those present said to meet in person.  She will arrange a kickoff meeting for this month.

•    Club voting this evening on library telescope and First Christian Church-related storage questions – John Blaesi.  We voted as a Club on three topics this evening.  John Blaesi determined we had a quorum of members to do this Club business:

•    1) Library telescope:  Buy a new telescope for the library (up to $600.00 price)? This was approved with no opposition

•    2) What to do with telescopes still in storage at the First Christian Church: 

§  BYA will take two telescopes

§  Donate the E.L. Clarke historical telescope to the Bartlesville History Museum

§  Donate the remaining telescopes to the Oklahoma City Astronomy Club. 

All of the above items were approved with no opposition.

•    3) Pay the City for storage space at the First Christian Church, that right now we get for free:  Pay up to $400-600/year for storage 10 ft. X 15 ft. or less.  This was approved with no opposition.

•    Tonight’s Program - Gordon Meredith - International Dark Sky Association

•    Gordon is the Regional Manager for the International Dark Sky Association (IDA) in North Texas and has been a member of the IDA since 2009. 

•    Gordon’s presentation was on “International Dark Sky Places – A How-to”

•    The IDA was founded in 1988 and is dedicated to the protection of the night sky environment for every living thing on Earth. 

•    The IDA began the Dark Sky Places Program in 2001 with the selection of Flagstaff, Arizona as the first Dark Sky Community.

•    These are categories of Dark Sky Places: 

•    Dark Sky Parks—Darker than 21.2 mpsas (magnitude per square arc second)

•    Dark Sky Sanctuaries—Darker than 21.5 mpsas & unstaffed

•    Dark Sky Reserves—Core darker than 21.2 mpsas & can contain private property

•    Urban Night Sky Places—Not darker than 21.2 mpsas, but within 50 km of urban area

•    Dark Sky Communities

•    Developments of Distinction (retired 2020)\

•    We are losing our dark skies at the rate of upwards of 4% per year.

•    Gordon also reviewed a chart of what you can see in the night sky, depending on how dark the area is from which you are observing. 

•    Best stargazing in Oklahoma per travelok.com:  Black Mesa State Park; Osage Hills State Park; Tenkiller State Park and Lake Eufaula; NW Oklahoma; Watonga, OK; Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge; McGee Creek State Park; Ouachita Mountains

• Adjournment

•    Next meeting March 6 at library – presentation by Sonny Manley on “An Introduction to Solar Imaging”

• Ice cream at Braum’s!!!

• Motion to adjourn