March 2023 Meeting Notes

Bartlesville Astronomical Society Meeting Minutes

March 6, 2023

• Opening and Welcome

•     Thank you to Denise Gregg for Zoom setup

• We had 21 in attendance this evening, including one new member who joined this evening.  We had thirteen members attending and eight visitors, including our guest speaker.   

• Announcements

•    Anyone planning to go somewhere for the solar eclipse?  The Club still doesn’t plan to attend as a group.

•    Denise suggested that we plan a star party at Green Country Village.  We have just had a lady who lives there ask to be put on our newsletter list!

• Observing and Imaging Reports

•    “Night Sky Photography: From Capture to Post-Processing” - Zolt Levay - Space Telescope Science Institute - March 17 - 7:00pm

• Astronomical News and Events - Virgil Reese

• Virgil showed an artist’s rendition of a black hole.

• He showed images of the Milky Way and the Rosette Nebula taken with the Herschel Space Telescope.

• He discussed galaxies having a disk on the inside, then working outward, an inner halo and then an outer halo.

• The Milky Way is making new stars 23 times faster than we had thought.

• A meteoroid crashed into the English Channel February 13, 2023. 

• The NEOMIR orbiting asteroid observatory will act as an early warning system for asteroids that could be heading toward Earth.  It will be positioned at the L1 Lagrange point between the Sun and Earth.  It is targeted for launch in the 2028-2030 timeframe. 

• Virgil showed an image of a blue jet, the brightest kind of light generated from thunderstorms.  (A blue jet shoots upward from thunderstorm clouds as high as 50 km into the stratosphere, and lasts less than a second.)

• Business

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

•    Treasurer’s Report - Evan Zorn

•    Dues are due now if you have not already paid.

•    Ending balance January 31, 2023:  $11058.71

•    Received $2000 in COP volunteer grants

•    Received $100.00 in dues

•    Received $5.75 from Amazon Smile

•    Ending balance February 28, 2023:  $13164.46

•    Committee Reports

•    Astronomical League news and activities - Denise Gregg

•     Denise will be sending in the April ALCor report—the one that determines who receives the Reflector for the coming year on March 16.  Please renew before that date if you wish to continue to receive the Reflector!

•     We have been given the name of our NSN speaker expert which we are scheduling for our June meeting.  He is Dr. Christopher Johns-Krull, chairman of the department of physics and astronomy at Rice University!

•    MSRAL - Tulsa June 9-11, 2023

•    Volunteers?

•    Meetings with MSRAL for bylaws

•    25 presidents and others worked on this

•    The proposed by-laws will be available in March

•    Email will be sent for member comments and approval

•    Youth club (BYA) news - Rick Bryant—Rick was not in attendance this evening.  Their star party February 24 (and backup date February 25) had to be cancelled due to weather.

•    Library Display

•    May 2023.  Setup will probably be April 28/29 and takedown May 30/31.

•    If you think you have any pictures that we put up at the library display last year at your house, please look for them!

•    FCC - Evan Zorn

•    Should we find alternate storage?  Evan is working on renting our downstairs storage room from the City.

•    We donated eight of our older telescopes and some eyepieces and adapters to the Oklahoma City Astronomy Club on March 3.  They met us here in a truck to take them. 

•    Old Business—We need a member to do Facebook and Twitter for the Club

•    New Business

•    Do something at the TASM Planetarium?

•    Eclipse ambassador program—if you are interested in this, ask Craig for more information

• Tonight’s Program

•    Sonny Manley - “An Introduction to Solar Imaging”

•     Sonny began his presentation by stressing the need for proper eye protection when viewing the Sun, whether through equipment of any kind, such as telescopes, or with naked eye

•     He discussed the composition of our Sun.  The core forms the innermost part of the Sun.  Working outward, there is the convection zone, the chromosphere and the corona, which extends out into space. 

•     The visible surface of the Sun that we see is the photosphere.  Sunspots occur on the photosphere.  Granulation covers the photosphere—it looks something like an orange peel. 

•     Sunspots have umbrae and penumbrae.  Temperatures of sunspots range from about 6,300 degrees Fahrenheit in the darker regions to 7,000 degrees Fahrenheit in the lighter regions.

•     Sunspots can last from hours up to months.

•     We are now in solar cycle 25, with sunspots increasing for the next 2-3 years.

•     There are three main types of filters used for viewing the Sun.  These are white light filters, hydrogen alpha filters and calcium X filters. 

•     With white light filters you can see sunspot groups, solar granulation faculae and limb darkening in the photosphere.

•     With Calcium X filters you can see the chromosphere with its solar prominences.

•     With hydrogen alpha filters you can see solar prominences in the chromosphere and solar filaments and flares, which can be dramatic.

•     Sonny showed images and videos he has taken of the Sun as viewed through the various filters.  One was of an International Space Station transit of the Sun (you can use a hydrogen alpha filter to observe ISS transits).

• Adjournment

• Next meeting

•    April 3 at library, topic is “A Spectroscopic Tour of the H-R Diagram” by Lauren Herrington. 

•    Need volunteers to present at meetings.

• Ice cream at Braum’s!!!

• Motion to adjourn