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Bartlesville Astronomical Society Meeting Notes
July 1, 2024
Attendance: We had 17 members in attendance this evening, in person and on Zoom. We had no guests this evening.
Main program: Apps and Websites for your Mobile Device, with multiple speakers!
The Bartlesville Astronomical Society doesn’t officially endorse any app or website; this presentation is to tell about apps and websites that Club members have used! Prices of apps that that are not free are subject to change, and it’s always possible that an app or website that is free now could charge a price in the future.
Star Walk 2—Pat S:
Pat began using this app as a good introductory app for the night sky. You can get it for free, with ads; there is an ad-free version, current price $2.99. This app is particularly good for sending out notifications about things like upcoming meteor showers and other special astronomical events.
Heavens-Above—Denise G:
Denise has mainly used this website for International Space Station transits, but it does other things as well, such as Starlink passes, Hubble Space Telescope passes, other satellite passes, and solar eclipse passes. You can also look at sky maps for past dates. This website is free; Denise recommends that if you set up a password-enabled account on the website and geocode your location, that if you set this up as a favorite on your mobile device, that you set it up as the login screen, so that you’re prompted to log in. (Otherwise, if you’ve deleted history/cookies on your mobile device after your last login, your geocoded location won’t pop up automatically.)
ISS Live Now—Evan Z:
This app is sponsored by NASA. You can get an ad-free version for $1.99. The ISS completes a rotation around Earth every 90 minutes, and this app is great for viewing geography on Earth, as well as sunrises and sunsets as seen from above. One feature of this app is that if you view something on Earth—or sunrises, sunsets or anything else as seen from above by the ISS--you can photograph it from within the app nd save the picture to your camera roll on your mobile device! This app also gives access to NASA TV, including broadcast interviews.
ISS Detector App—Evan Z:
With this app, you can set minimum levels of brightness and elevation for ISS pass notifications.
ISS Transit Finder—John G
John gave a brief overview of this website that he uses. It is particularly good for predicting passes by the ISS in front of the Sun and Moon, as well as passes of the Hubble Space Telescope and the Chinese space station.
Spot the station, a NASA website—John B:
https://spotthestation.nasa.gov/
This is another method to track ISS passes; this is a website, not an app.
SkyView app—John B:
John said that this app is particularly useful to use with a telescope that doesn’t have GoTo functionality. You can move around the map of the night sky pretty easily, and this app is available at a nominal price.
SkySafari—Craig B:
SkySafari comes in 3 versions: Basic, Plus, and Pro. It runs on IOS and Android.
SkySafari 7 Basic costs $2.99. It has 120,000 stars in its star catalog, along with 200 star clusters, galaxies, nebulae, comets, etc.
There is a free version from Celestron called Sky Portal that is based on SkySafari 6 Basic, if you want to try before purchasing SkySafari 7.
SkyPortal is designed for use with the Celestron StarSense telescope.
Craig recommends spending a bit more and install Plus or Pro.
SkySafari 7 Plus costs $19.99. SkySafari Plus 7 has 2 ½ million stars, 32,000 deep sky objects, and 7000 asteroids/comets/satellites. It features telescope control the same as SkySafari Pro.
SkySafari 7 Pro costs $49.99. SkySafari Pro 7 has 100 million stars and 3 million galaxies, down to magnitude 18. It has 75,000 solar system objects, including every known comet and asteroid. There are over 800 images displayed when you get information on an object. It also has a moon map. You can control a telescope using WiFi. It can be used with Celestron StarSense and Evolution telescopes. It can be used with Meade telescopes, with an ETX adapter, with SeeStar, and with other telescopes, using an adapter. You can adjust your field of view to match your telescope type.
SkySafari versions are frequently on sale near holidays and space events for 30%-60% off. It's worth waiting if you want to save some money.
SkySafari 6 Plus/Pro is still available for purchase, but it is not supported, so don't buy/install it. (no updates in the last 3 years.) I think it is priced high to discourage downloading it.
SkySafari has a huge amount of settings to customize the display that you'd like to see. You can set your location to current GPS coordinates or any selectable location. You can set the coordinate system to Alt-Az, Equatorial, Ecliptic or Galactic (Pro version). If you select an object, there is often the option to have audio pronunciation and description of that object.
You can control the time of the display to see the stars' positions for 10000 years in the past and future. You can use the clock to simulate eclipses, transits (even moons around Jupiter for example), and conjunctions.
You can control the Field of View. You can create presets matching your telescope, binocular, eyepiece and camera characteristics to display a circle or rectangle to see what you would see while observing with that combination. You can display a horizon line or synthetic landscape. You can display the ecliptic and grids.
The search functions are great. You can select Tonight's Best to see what is currently visible. You can search for partial matches by name or catalog objects such as Messier, Caldwell, etc., and create observing lists sorted by magnitude, risetimes, Right Ascension, visibility.
You can also set it to display the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram for stars. This option displays the stars shown with the current field of view on the main sequence line with magnitude and spectral type axes.
If you want, SkySafari can send notifications of upcoming events to your phone. For example, it will let you know if the ISS is passing overhead.
SkySafari is one of the best astronomy apps to use. Craig highly recommends it.
Astronomical events/reports:
We didn’t have a star party June 8 due to weather.
Club Business:
Treasurer’s Report – Evan Z:
Ending balance May 31, 2024: $15,471.40.
No activity during June.
Ending balance June 30, 2024: $15471.40
The Club is going to set up a savings account at Truity Credit Union to put the larger share of our Club funds in, as we can get 4 ½% interest on the account, using a special program that Truity offers for non-profits. With this program, we can make up to four withdrawals from our savings account per year. We will continue to use our Arvest account for monthly and annual expenses, and keep enough funds in that account to cover them.
Evan also mentioned that Fred Frey, a former member of our Club, is interested in donating a 12-inch telescope mirror grinding machine to our Club; two Pyrex blanks; and one telescope.
Portable projector: Pat is working on options for us to get a portable, battery-powered projector. It would cost $200-500. Pat S is working on this.
P66 volunteer grant update: Today is the last day for Phillips 66 retirees to accumulate hours towards Phillips 66 volunteer grants. (Current P66 employees can still get them.) As far as we know, ConocoPhillips has not announced a similar change for the volunteer grant program for COP retirees.
Astronomical League update:
Denise has forwarded information about registering for AlCon 2024 to Club members. AlCon is July 16-20, 2024 in Overland Park, Kansas.
Library display: Coming up in August. Evan says we can use the area behind our mall display to do a test setup, as we have done in the past at Our Savior Lutheran, which is now closed. Denise will set up a date mid-July to do this. Toward the end of the month, the library will let us know when we can do our setup. Denise has prepared two “slides” to print out and put on the display case wall, one about meteor showers in summer and fall, and another about the 2045 total eclipse.
We have a number of good pictures of the aurora borealis in May already printed and laminated to put in the display, as well as of the April 8 total solar eclipse. (The excellent pictures that Mike Woods gave us at Sunfest are now laminated and ready for the display.)
If anyone has any good mobile device pictures of the aurora borealis, if you would like to print them glossy, 8x10, and then laminate them, the Club will pay for them. (We usually laminate them at the Bartlesville Print Shop.)
Girl Scout event this September: They have asked that we come do a star party (like we have done before) at Camp Wah-Shah-She September 20, 21, or 22; will probably do on Friday, September 20. Craig is coordinating this event. Will need volunteers.
Green Country Village: Denise is doing a presentation at Green Country Village Tuesday, July 23 at 2 p.m. on meteor showers and the aurora borealis. A/V walk through is on July 16 at 2 p.m. If anyone would like to bring a telescope to look at the Sun during this event, or otherwise attend and visit with the people at Green Country Village, you are more than welcome! Luann has already said that she’s interested in coming to the event. It will last about an hour or so.
Brookdale Senior Living: Denise has offered to a presentation on meteor showers for them; date is still pending.
Eldercare fundraiser--“Dinner Under the Stars” to be held at the Cross Bell Ranch: Date not yet set, would need to take place before September 30. John B is coordinating this event. Will need volunteers; will wait until closer to the date to confirm.
Tulsa Air and Space Museum planetarium: Denise has suggested some September dates to them; she has not yet heard back.
Next club meeting: August 5 at the library, topic is new telescope technology. This meeting will be in meeting room A.
Later meetings:
September: Night Sky photography and proposed slate of Club officers for 2025
October: Club elections and other business, and something fun
November: Do you want a telescope for Christmas?
December: An upcoming year’s worth of meteor showers; possibly a star party
January: You got a telescope for Christmas. Now what do you do with it?
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