Shuttle Endeavour Flyover

Lots of folks gathered at NASA Aimes for the Flyover of Space Shuttle Endeavour.

Beautiful Day  - Beautiful spaceship. 

Flyover Video and Crowd Cam Here:

https://plus.google.com/photos/115436722413756146284/albums/5790716943897359409

 

Great Education and Outreach Booths:

Almaden Valley Art & Wine Festival

Observe The Sun Safely - Never look at the Sun without a proper filter! 

Solar Programs are held 1st Sunday of every Month 2:00-4:00 PM at Houge Park  weather permitting

Thousands of folks and families gathered for the 2012 Almaden Valley Art & Wine Festival sponsored by the Almaden Valley Women's Club. And For a couple of years now SJAA has been apart of the festival.

Below are some pics of SJAA at the event starting off with Ed Wong (Left) talking with a patron.

These two girls took time out from their practice for their dance show to see the surface of sun in H-alpha. That got the whole gang to come over and take a look.

Below, woman viewing our star and Rob Jaworski who organized SJAA's participation in the festival

 Very happy girl who got too see our sun and two sunspots

 It is always a good day when there are sunspots visible and H-Alpha flares. We had two sunspots and although we had prominences all around the solar disk, a decent sized one plus filament were also present.

Malika Carter below showing sunspots with her eyepiece projection system. 

Michael (left) Bill O'Neil (center) and a two very interested guys checking out Solar Prominences..

All in all a great day for SJAA outreach - thanks to all who helped!

Loaner Scope & Quick STARt Status Page

SJAA offers all of it's members the opportunity to borrow various types of loaner scopes.   The challenge with any such program is the ability to provide a current listing of scopes and their availability.  
 
I am pleased to say that we have developed a system which will provide 100% transparency.

When you go to the SJAA main website - please note the link circled in red below.

After clicking on Telescopes/Mentoring link - it takes you to the Loaner Scope Program status page as seen below:

Above is a screenshot of an embedded Google spreadsheet that is opened up to the Advanced Loaner Scope Status page.  This page will show you the up-to-date status of all of the clubs loaner scopes.   When you send me a request via email for a particular scope I will put your name in the "On Deck" column, when you pick it up the status will change to "Out on loan" and the due date will be noted in the Comments column.  Should the scope be out on loan already, your name will stay in the On Deck column until it becomes available and you pick it up.
 
Another benefit that the club offers to our new members is the ability to participate in the Quick STARt program.    To see an overview of the program please click on Quick START (QS) Program tab.  After doing so - it brings you to:

Those new SJAA members who have requested (or accepted in invitation) to attend the next session will have their names listed.  If you don't see your name on this list please send me an email.

The QS Scopes tab lists all of the scopes dedicated to this program and their current status.

Please keep in mind that the scopes above are available to "ALL" members to borrow.   The QS  program participants get 1st priority though.   Please email me if you are interested in checking out a QS program scope and it's related items as described in this previous post.
http://sanjoseastronomy.blogspot.com/2012/07/quick-start-gets-upgrade.html

We also would love to hear from you on how to make this program better.  Are there any scopes or items you want the club to put into the program?

Thanks for your support.

Regards,
Dave Ittner