December 2024 Meeting Notes

Bartlesville Astronomical Society Meeting Notes

December 2, 2024

Attendance:  We had 17 in attendance this evening, 15 members and 2 guests, in person and on Zoom.

Astronomical trivia—John G:

Neutron stars: 

·       A blue whale weighs about 250,000 pounds.  Forty-eight million blue whales would fit into one neutron star!

·       One teaspoon of neutron star material would weigh 12 trillion pounds!

·       If the Sun shrank to the size of a neutron star, it would be about the size of Paris—about 12 miles across.

·       If you were to get pulled into a black hole, you would be extremely stretched in the process.  This gravitational process of extreme stretching is known as spaghettification. 

Astronomy basics—Brian T:

Astronomy 101, Kepler’s Three Laws

Law one:  Planets travel in ellipses with the Sun as a focus.  (Where there would also normally be a second focus for an ellipse, there is nothing.) 

Mercury and Pluto (in the days when Pluto was considered to be a planet) have the most stretched orbits.  (Pluto could possibly be an escapee from Neptune’s orbit.)

Law two:  Planets sweep out equal areas in equal amounts of time.  The closer to the Sun a planet is, the faster it travels. 

Law three:  The period of a planet’s orbit, squared, is the size of the semi-major axis of its elliptical orbit, cubed.  The semi-major axis of an ellipse is the length of the longest radius of an ellipse.  The longest radius of an ellipse is the greatest distance between the center and perimeter of the ellipse. 

Recent Club Events:

·       November 9 - Jo Allyn Lowe Star Party Canceled due to high humidity and lack of interest.

·       November 16 - Library Display Brainstorming Meeting:  The Library Display committee brainstormed ideas for the March 2025 display.  It was decided that assembling member astrophotos into six posters, and fitting each printed poster into a separate display panel, will work best.  Other items, like books, video display and more, will also be included.

·       November 19 - Cub Scouts Astronomy Night:  Craig, Luann, Evan, Denise and Eugene gave an astronomy program to Cub Scouts.  In addition to an indoor presentation, the scouts were able to view Saturn, Jupiter, the Andromeda Galaxy and star clusters through telescopes.

Upcoming Club Events:

·       December 14 - Public stargazing at Jo Allyn Lowe, featuring Geminid meteor shower.  We decided not to have a star party at Jo Allyn Lowe this month since this is the holiday season and there will likely be many competing activities.

·       January 6 - BAS Meeting - “Got a telescope for Christmas? Wondering what to do next?”

·       January 11 - Public stargazing at Jo Allyn Lowe

Recent Astronomical Events:

We were treated to pictures tonight!

·       Sonny Manley—Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) with the Milky Way, and a sunspot photographed August 14

·       John B—Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS)

·       Rick Bryant--Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS), taken with different camera settings

·       John G—Northern Lights

·       Denise G--Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) and Northern Lights

Upcoming Astronomical Events:

·       Dec 1 - New Moon

·       Dec 7 - Jupiter at Opposition, visible all night

·       Dec 14/15 - Geminid Meteors

·       Dec 15 - Full Moon / Cold Moon

·       Dec 21 - Winter Solstice

·       Dec 25 - Mercury at Greatest Elongation West, farthest from Sun in sky, visible before sunrise

·       Dec 30 - Black New Moon, second New Moon of the month

·       Full Planetary Alignment:  On Friday, February 28, 2025 there will be a full planetary alignment visible shortly after sunset.  Seven planets will be visible in the sky at the same time.  Saturn, Mercury and Neptune will be low in the west, with Venus a little higher.  Uranus, Jupiter and Mars will be lined up near the ecliptic, high overhead arcing over Orion.  And as a bonus, a very thin crescent Moon may (or may not) be visible halfway between Saturn and Mercury.  This might make a great special event for public view.

Treasurer’s Report – Evan Z:

·       Ending balance October 31, 2024:  $16253.70

·       Deposit $80.00 in donations from Benevity Causes/COP

·       Deposit $180.00 in membership dues

·       Deposit Truity interest $47.75

·       Ending balance November 30, 2024:  $16561.45

Product sales for the holidays:

·       SkySafari Plus and Sky Safari Pro apps typically go on sale on various dates this time of year.  Sky Safari Plus normal price is $20.00; can go on sale for $4.99.  Sky Safari Pro is normally $50.00; can go on sale for $14.99.

·       ZWO is having a Seestar telescope sale that ends January 1.

Facebook update:  John B says we have a lot of interest now in our Facebook page—we have six hundred followers now, including some outside the U.S.!

Requests:

BAS needs member astrophotos for our March 2025 library display.  Please email yours to bvilleastro@gmail.com.  Do you have astro pictures you’d like to share at a BAS meeting?  Email them to bvilleastro@gmail.com.

BAS needs volunteers:

BAS has been without a dedicated website administrator for several years, and our website is in need of an update.  If you can help update and maintain the club website, please send an email or talk to one of the Club officers.  Your efforts will be an important part of promoting BAS to the on-line community.

BAS Text Alerts:

We’re still working on a way to provide time critical alerts to members who opt-in to a future alert system.  The methods we have tried so far have had significant drawbacks. We hope to try the GroupMe app in the near future.  If you are willing to be part of a test program, please inform one of the Club officers.

Suggestion regarding star parties at Jo Allyn Lowe—star parties where newsletter list is invited:

For the star party November 9, we didn’t get enough people who have optical telescopes volunteering to participate.  The moisture in the air led us to cancel the star party anyway, but this was the first time planning a star party at Jo Allyn Lowe when almost everyone who would normally bring a telescope couldn’t come.

After this experience, Denise decided she would email Club members ahead of a Jo Allyn Lowe star party to see who can come with optical telescopes.  (Seestar telescopes would be a bonus; most people coming to a star party expect to look through an optical telescope.)  If we can’t get at least three firm commitments to bring an optical telescope, then we won’t have the star party at Jo Allyn Lowe and won’t advertise it to the newsletter list.

For Sale:

1. Orange tube Celestron 8" SCT with 2-inch diagonal and Telrad finder- $450

2. Celestron 6" f/5 reflector with tube rings and rail and Telrad finder- $150

Contact Don Fudge at donfu61@gmail.com

Top Ten Tips for Buying a Telescope: https://www.cloudynights.com/articles/cat/astro-geartoday/more/beginners-guides/top-ten-tips-for-buying-a-telescope-r4643

Books Fred Frey donated to us:  Please take any that you would like; some you might like for a Christmas gift to someone else!  Any books that aren’t taken will go to the storage room at the mall; we might set up a library there.

Main program – “A Year’s Worth of Meteor Showers” – Denise Gregg

·       Denise reviewed some of the science behind meteor showers; tips on viewing meteor showers; and the major (and some of the minor) meteor showers through the year.

·       She also showed pictures of meteorites and how they were incorporated into various objects in ancient Egypt at the time of King Tutankhamun. 

·       She also discussed something that John Land had touched on in our November meeting:  the Quadrantid meteor shower was named after a constellation that is no longer recognized.  This constellation was the Quadrans Muralis, named after the mural quadrant, a tool used to plot astronomical objects on the celestial sphere (an abstract sphere extending into the sky, with Earth as its center).  The constellation Quadrans Muralis was named by the French astronomer Jérôme Lalande in 1795, as this particular grouping of stars reminded him of a mural quadrant.  The Quadrantids meteor shower itself was named in the 1830’s.  Even though the constellation Quadrans Muralis wasn’t included in the list of 88 constellations published by the International Astronomical Union in 1922, the name of the Quandrantid meteor shower itself was kept. 

·       Edmond Halley used a mural quadrant at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England.  Denise showed pictures of the Royal Observatory; the Greenwich Meridian; and a movable quadrant (one not actually mounted or built into a wall that follows a meridian) that is located at the Observatory. 

·       Upcoming meteor showers-- 

o   Geminids:  December 2-December 21, peak night December 12-13 (weather permitting).  Look to E/SE. Radiates from constellation Gemini.  Up to 120 meteors/hour, rural area, no moonlight.  Geminids can be seen starting around 9-10 p.m. until morning twilight; best after midnight.  Unlike most meteor showers, the Geminids are visible all night long, since the constellation Gemini arises just an hour or two after nightfall.  The peak viewing time is around 2 a.m. when the radiant is highest.

o   Possible new shower, lambda Sculptorids?  Would run from December 10-12, possible peak December 12 (weather permitting).  Look to S/SW.  Would radiate from constellation Sculptor.  

o   Ursids:  December 16-26, peak night December 21-22, after midnight, predawn (weather permitting).  Look to N.  Radiates from constellation Ursa Minor.  Up to 10 meteors/hour, rural, no moonlight. 

o   Quadrantids, December 26-January 16, peak night January 2-3, after midnight, predawn (weather permitting).  Look to N/NE.  Radiates from northern section of constellation Boötes, near the Big Dipper in N/NE sky after midnight, highest up before dawn.  Up to 25 meteors/hour, rural area, no moonlight.  Can have fireballs!