BAS Observer July 2017

4 BAS OBSERVER Club activities by Peter Allison, BAS President July 22nd star party Our astro brothers and sisters in the Scenic Rim Astronomy Association will try again with their annual star party, this time on Saturday, 22nd July. (The first attempt in June was clouded out and so had to be rescheduled for the July New Moon.) Learn more about this event at the Scenic Rim website: www.sraa.org.au This will be a great opportunity for BAS members who are thinking of buying a telescope but don’t know which type and size to select. There will be a wide range of telescopes at the star party, and their owners would love to let you have a look through their instruments and chat with you about the pros and cons of their particular telescope. So this is the perfect opportunity to do some telescope research under the stars, in the company of knowledgeable telescope users. The event kicks off around 3.00 p.m. with some solar observing, and once the Sun sets the sky is the limit. There will also be a tutorial session on tripod astrophotography by the local camera club, so bring your camera and tripod too. And don’t forget to bring the kids – they’ll love it! The venue is the old Laravale School, located about 15 minutes south of Beaudesert on the Mount Lindesay Highway. The school is just 500 metres along Christmas Creek Road from the Laravale turn-off. BAS Constitution update At the July 7th BAS meeting we will be putting some suggested changes to the BAS Constitution to a member vote. You can read about the changes being sought on our website under the News menu option ( http://www.bas.asn.au/ index.php/news/bas-constitution-modifications). Please read through the suggested changes and come along to the July 7th meeting to cast your vote. BCC/Energex LED Street Light Trial I open this salvo with the statement that the Brisbane Astronomical Society would welcome the move to more-efficient, well-designed and cleverly controlled LED street lighting across Brisbane. At our June meeting we had representatives of Brisbane City Council and Energex deliver a short presentation on their LED Street Lighting Trial. What little we actually learned from the presentation was really quite concerning. It appears the trial team have dismissed any concerns, including those raised by the American Medical Association, regarding potential human health issues associated with blue-rich street lighting and blue-rich lighting in general. The attitude seems to be that because current mercury-vapour and compact-fluoro street lights already emit a lot of blue-rich light, there is no basis for Brisbane residents requesting that future LED street lighting operate at a lower correlated colour temperature and emit much less blue light. This seems to be a case of engineers thinking like engineers, which we must expect, rather than also considering their decisions from the perspective of residents. Even engineers must raise their families under Brisbane street lighting. Brisbane City Council has long told us we live in one of those rare ‘liveable cities’. A poor decision on future street lighting may take us a few more steps down the liveable cities ranking and perhaps have more serious consequences for some residents. It also appears the decision to ultimately deploy LED street lighting at a correlated colour temperature of 4000K, rather than the less-blue 3000K that BAS is recommending, has largely been made well before the actual trial has been completed – at least that is what it sounded like to the audience. And we never did learn what the trial assessment criteria were.