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Bartlesville Astronomical Society Meeting Notes
May 6, 2024
Attendance: We had 16 members and two guests this evening, in person and on Zoom.
Main program: Club members’ pictures and stories of the April 8, 2024 Great American Total Solar Eclipse
Mike W went to see family in Dallas. He had a telescope plus camera on tripod with him and had excellent pictures of the chromosphere, the “diamond” and the start of Baily’s Beads!
John B was near Paris, TX and had a telescope with him. He parked in a school yard and got pictures of totality with Venus, and Jupiter!
Pat S was in a church parking lot in Mountain View, Arkansas and showed us a great composite image of the eclipse!
Daryl D went to Russellville, Arkansas and got great images of totality, with lots of beautiful prominences and the diamond ring at the end!
John B showed images that Rick Bryant took in Broken Bow, including a great composite series he put together!
Denise showed pictures that she and members of her family took in Plano, including some excellent ones taken with an iPhone using the flat filters that the Night Sky Network gave us! She also had great pictures of the darkening sky and shadows on leaves.
Astronomical events/reports:
We didn’t have a star party April 13 at Jo Allyn Lowe due to the weather forecast.
Next possible Jo Allyn Lowe event would be Saturday, May 11. Sunset at 8:30 so would gather around that time.
Dark Sky observation night at new moon? Didn’t decide on this tonight.
Club Business:
Treasurer’s Report – Evan:
March 31, 2024, ending balance: $15,010.94.
Received $25 in membership dues plus a $20 donation
Received $80 Blackbaud Fund donation
Reimbursement to John Blaesi for $105.45 for club Celestron telescope battery.
Ending balance April 30, 2024: $15,030.49.
John B asked members to consider how we might use the funds we now have!
Buy a portable projector? The projector used by the BYA is in our storage room at the mall, but it’s not easily portable. A portable, battery-powered one would cost $200-500. Need volunteers to work on this; Pat S. offered to work on this!
BAS T-shirts? Maybe work on this down the road.
P66 volunteer grant update: Evan reported that Phillips 66 is discontinuing the volunteer grant program as well as donation-matching for Phillips 66 retirees effective July 1, 2024. This means that any P66 retirees who have accumulated enough hours by July 1 to apply for volunteer grants will need to do so soon. Evan said that this change doesn’t apply to P66 employees, just retirees.
Denise said that as far as she knows, ConocoPhillips has not announced a similar change for the volunteer grant program for COP retirees. (COP no longer matches donations by retirees to nonprofits like ours; they continue to match United Way donations.)
Astronomical League update:
· MSRAL is June 7-9 at the Mahoney State Park Lodge in Nebraska. The conference dates are the same dates as the OKM Music Festival here. Registration is open at www.msral.org.
· AlCon will be in Overland Park, Kansas, July 16-20, and one of the speakers will be David Levy. Registration is now open at https://www.astroleague.org/
Solar Eclipse viewers: John B says we have about 200 of these now in storage.
Sunfest:
To shorten the time of the meeting this evening, Denise sent an email to Club members with the anticipated Sunfest schedule so that people could sign up to help with booth setup, takedown, and manning the booth during the Sunfest weekend, May 31-June 2.
The mall display “movie-themed” poster that John G developed is now on display by the movie theaters at the mall. Go look at it!
Library display is coming up in August.
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. (We’re thinking of doing this Friday, September 20.) Craig said they have eight 4-inch telescopes that would need to be checked out ahead of time to make sure they’re in working order; some might need to be collimated.
Green Country Village: They would like a presentation; Denise will contact them. Two or three people at the meeting offered to help.
Brookdale Senior Living: Denise has also been contacted by them to do a presentation for them; she has offered to do meteor showers. Date pending.
Eldercare fundraiser--“Dinner Under the Stars” to be held at the Cross Bell Ranch: Date to be mutually agreed on. Laura Teague, who has recently attended one or two Club meetings, approached John B about us participating in an evening event to be held at the Cross Bell Ranch that would be auctioned off at the Eldercare fundraiser dinner in May. This event would need to take place before September 30. About 5 people at the meeting tonight offered to help out.
Denise heard back from the Tulsa Air and Space Museum planetarium. We will see about doing a planetarium show in September.
Next club meeting: June 3 at the library, with our special NSN guest speaker, Moonzarin Reza, a grad student at Texas A&M. She will be speaking on her current topic of research: Identifying type 1a supernova, which can be used as "standard candles" to measure distances to galaxies. Type 1a supernovae also have some cosmological implications.
Later meetings:
July: Planetarium apps
August: New telescope technology
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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