July 2023 Meeting Notes
Bartlesville Astronomical Society Meeting Minutes
July 3, 2023
• Opening and Welcome
• Thank you to Denise Gregg for Zoom setup
• Twenty-two in attendance this evening, in person and on Zoom (Welcome guests and new members (14 members and eight guests)
• Announcements
• Showed M101 SN 2023ixf—Daryl’s images!
• Milky Way Arch from Mauna Kea with glow from Kilauea Volcano eruption by Sonny Manley: https://www.astrobin.com/2zrkcp/0/
• Portable observatory at Broken Arrow Sidewalk Astronomers
• https://www.astrotulsa.com/files/2023-07.o3lsd3idv7ej6e0d.pdf
• Anyone planning to go somewhere for the solar eclipses?
• Annular - October 14, 2023
• Total - April 8, 2024
• Braum’s after the meeting
• Observing and Imaging Reports—Denise told of seeing new comet C/2023 E1 ATLAS but too small (tiny blue dot) to bring an image to show at the meeting. Perihelion was July 1.
• Star Party – We decided to do a star party July 14, backup date July 15, at Jo Allyn Lowe. Date will depend on the weather.
• Supermoon is tonight.
• Comet C/2023 E1 ATLAS: Denise has taken long-exposure pictures of the comet but didn’t bring any tonight to show at the meeting. The comet appears as a very tiny blue dot in photographs.
• Astronomical News and Events
• Okie-Tex
• September 8-16
• Register by August 19
• Virgil Reese’s Astronomy News:
• Virgil showed an image (over twenty years old) of a Japanese neutrino detector that detected neutrinos in the core of the Sun.
• The South Pole Neutrino Observatory detector project construction is complete; drilling was done 80 km into the ice in Antarctica.
• The Milky Way is a source of high energy neutrinos. The first direct evidence of this has been recently found—the first statistically robust evidence of neutrino emission in the inner part of the Milky Way galaxy.
• Detecting low-frequency gravitational waves—Scientists are watching the rhythms of pulsars (remnants of collapsed stars) for patterns that deviate from their normal rhythms; these patterns indicate the presence of gravitational waves. Gravitational waves jiggle space time, something akin to the way that a serving of Jello jiggles!
• Virgil showed recent images of Saturn taken by the James Webb Space Telescope.
• He showed an image of a plume of water emitted from Saturn’s moon Enceladus in May
• He showed an image of emerald-green airglow taken recently in Colorado
• He showed an image of coronal rain on the Sun
• The Euclid mission was launched July 1 by SpaceX. The Euclid spacecraft will be stationed at the L2 Lagrange point where, over its expected 6 ½ year lifetime, it will attempt to chart 1.5 billion galaxies over the last 10 billion years of cosmic history.
• In development—a cosmic ray GPS system? To scan for subatomic particles that could aid in monitoring volcanoes and in search-and-rescue missions
• Business
• Minutes of previous meeting are posted online by Denise Gregg - Approved
• Treasurer’s Report - Evan Zorn:
• Ending balance May 31, 2023: $13987.15
• Expenses:
• Soft drinks for library display takedown: $7.00
• Astronomical League annual dues for 27 memberships: $151.05
• Payment to City of Bartlesville for 3 months’ storage at the First Christian Church: $108.00
• No deposits
• Ending balance June 30, 2023: $13721.10
• Committee Reports
• Astronomical League news and activities - Denise Gregg
• MSRAL - Tulsa June 9-11, 2023
• Report
• Approved new MSRAL bylaws
• Lots of interesting presentations, including John Blaesi on Dark Sky initiatives. Thank you!
• There were two interesting presentations on the development of current constellations, and those in other cultures that are not as well known. It was agreed by those present that we would enjoy those presentations at future Club meetings!
• The Broken Arrow Astronomy Club’s “sidewalk astronomy” portable telescope was on display at MSRAL.
• Next year in Omaha - June 7-9, 2024
• ALCon - July 28-30 Albuquerque, NM
• Youth club (BYA) news - Rick Bryant—Rick was not in attendance this evening
• Will probably restart meetings in September. The star party they had June 30 was clouded out, so no youth came.
• How do we get new participants?
• Library Display
• Denise has received the application form for library display for 2024. We decided on first choice May, second choice March, using the same theme as the last two years. We will highlight the solar eclipses this October and next April. Application due July 15.
• FCC - Evan Zorn
• Signed lease through August, total $108.
• Should we find alternate storage? Denise has checked Acorn and no climate-controlled, inside, ground floor storage is available. She talked to the new Rice Creek storage facility and they are building climate-controlled storage. Price per month for a 10X10 unit climate-controlled will be $120.00 and non-climate-controlled $90.00 for a 10X10. We plan to have a Board meeting on July 7 at noon at Bambino’s and discuss this further.
• If we donate documents, we should scan them first.
• Library Telescope—Denise will fill out application to get this.
• Binocular purchase program from Vortex Optics
• 50% of MSRP
• Youth group?
• Club?
• Library?
• OHSP?
• Girl Scouts?
• OHSP telescope?
• OHSP dark sky
• Club telescopes
• Board meeting—July 7 at noon at Bambino’s; Denise will make sure their meeting area is available.
• Craig and Denise got emails from the NSN about a new expert speaker program for September, October or November. We decided on first choice September, second choice October and third choice November. Craig would like the presentation to be on cosmology; Lauren would like to have a presentation covering Stellar Physics and Stellar Types and/or and Stellar Populations and the Interstellar Medium.
• Eclipse glasses: Craig has heard that the library is getting a lot of eclipse glasses. He will talk to them to see how many they are getting/where they’re getting them from.
• Tonight’s Program
• “Confessions of a Lazy Backyard Astronomer” - Daryl
• Daryl has been working on upgrading his equipment and the applications he uses to process images.
• Daryl did a demonstration of how one of his new software applications works. He showed an example image of Messier 81, Bode’s Galaxy, close to the Big Dipper.
• Another application, Siril 1.2.0 beta 2, is free software; It has tutorials and different viewing options. It does full image processing, with scripts.
• Daryl showed a variety of images taken with his equipment, including the Sun with coronal prominences and stipules; the Horsehead Nebula with the Flame Nebula, imaged in red, green and blue; the North American Nebula imaged in red, green and blue; M13, the globular cluster in Hercules; M 31, the Andromeda Galaxy; M33, the Triangulum Galaxy; the Orion Nebula with the Running Man; and, last but not least, M101, the Pinwheel Galaxy, taken May 17 before the new supernova, and another image a week later!
• Adjournment
• Next meeting August 7 at library with Jonathan Fussell
• “The Stellar Nucleosynthesis of Phosphorus as a Biosignature for Life in the Universe”
• Motion to adjourn