October 2019 Astronomy Day

Astronomy Day Oct. 5, 2019

What: Celebrate National Astronomy Day by having indoor events at the library in the afternoon, followed by a star party that evening at Tri County Tech. (The star party was cancelled in the end, due to weather.)

Who: BAS and BYA members and the public were invited to attend.

Where: Bartlesville Library and grassy area to south of Tri County Tech

When: Library 1-5 p.m.; Tri County Tech star party 7:30 p.m.-10:30 p.m.. Setup at the library began at 11 a.m. on the day.

Who coordinated: John Blaesi coordinated the event overall, as well as meeting room availability with the library and use of the 2^nd floor hallway and area outside library for telescope and larger binocular setup. Roger at the library was very helpful the day before our event (he stored two Club telescopes we brought over the day before in the library materials room) and on the day of, with setup. Denise coordinated with Darlene Young at Tri County Tech to use their grassy area to the south on their campus for an evening star party. Presentations were made by Abby on Constellations; Denise on Meteor Showers; Rick Buck and Gianna on Telescopes; and Bob Young on Smartphone Astronomy. John Blaesi, Rick Buck and Denise worked on publicity. John Blaesi also developed sheets describing various types of telescopes and mounts, which Craig laminated. Craig also laminated a number of Rick Buck’s recent images. This was also the first in-town event where we had our new business cards that Rick Bryant developed—they looked great!

Publicity used: Within the BAS/BYA: We discussed this at multiple BAS/BYA meetings starting in August. This was preceded by an email from John Blaesi in July to Club members soliciting volunteers to do presentations at the library; bring telescopes to both the library and the star party; and greet people, explain the night sky, and man information tables. John Blaesi also sent reminder emails early September (before the BAS September meeting), mid-September, late September (including a recap of who had volunteered for what) and three days before the event.

Kristi Herrman posted the event on the Club site and on Facebook and on October 5, the star party cancellation.

External publicity:

We had an advance newspaper article (posted by Emily Droege) and announcements put into the yellow sheet and Cable One TV announcements. We posted a full-page flyer at the library, Bartlesville Art Association and Jude’s. John also made a half-page “agenda for the day” that he made copies of and put in the library.

Rick Buck publicized this with the Cornerstone Classical Academy (home school group) and other home- schooling groups.

We also prepared in advance go/no go flyers for the star party, which we posted around our library room that afternoon.

Number of people who attended: We had 10 visitors attend the presentations altogether (different people went to different presentations), including three youth. Seven BAS/BYA members helped with event setup—Craig, John Grismore, Derek, Evan Zorn, Dave B, John Blaesi and Denise. Five gave presentations. Altogether about 18-19 BAS/BYA members were at the library on the day.

Materials used:

· BAS banner

· Two BAS telescopes

· One library telescope

· Two member telescopes and one set of larger binoculars

· Our usual handouts. Abby decided not to put out the youth giveaways like rulers and bookmarks since this was not an all-youth event.

· New business cards!

· New laminates—descriptions of three kinds of telescopes and two kinds of mounts—these looked good by the telescopes—as well as eight recent images that Rick Buck made

· Denise brought a flash drive with copies of our handouts on it—just in case we ran out and needed to print more at the library.

Materials of location site used: Several tables

BAS expenditures: Printing, including business cards and October star chart

Comments:

· Although we did have some visitors, we didn’t have as many as we had hoped. Rain during the day could have been a factor.

· We looked into having our indoor events as well as the star party at Tri County Tech. Denise toured Tri County with Darlene Young. They have lovely facilities but since they do charge for them, and the library is free, we opted to stick with the library.

· This event was on the same day as the annual Indian Summer Festival and the annual OKM Oktoberfest. Because of these competing events, Denise suggested doing a newspaper article about this event in advance—something we haven’t generally done for BAS activities open to the public.

· Our presentations ran to 5 p.m. (actually ended about 4:45) and the library closed at 5:30. We had to hurry to get everything out in time!

· The way the yellow sheet actually described our star party was “weather permitting”, rather than what we’d submitted about clouds could cancel the event, and watch our Facebook page. We decided to cancel the star party early Saturday afternoon, but it was not actually raining at the time the star party would have begun; skies were partly clear. Because of what was in the yellow sheet, Denise went to our star party area at Tri County from 7:15 pm-8:15 pm to watch for people who might come. There weren’t any, although a couple of cars did cruise through the area. Going forward, it would be good if we could decide on a way to better communicate when star parties might be cancelled. (Denise had not asked that the yellow sheet specifically include the sentences about clouds could cancel and the Facebook site; these were probably cut down to “weather permitting” to save space.)

· John Blaesi took some pictures of the event!

· It would have been good if more members could have attended the presentations!