Items for sale

SJAA has accumulated a lot of scopes and accessories over the years.   We now have too many items and too little room so it's time to offer them up for sale.

I found it best to break them out into one of three categories - Telescopes, Eyepieces, or Misc Items and put them on their own separate page here on this blog. The links to these pages can be found to the right of this post.

These items are offered up as is and on a first come first serve basis.  Should an item not yet be priced it will be shown as $TBD.   Feel free to offer a price for us to review and then either accept or counter.

I would be glad to answer any questions you have and or show you the item of interest by setting up a time to meet at Houge Park.

Please check back periodically as we have many more items to list (will be added to the bottom of each post).

Regards,

Dave Ittner

Season's Greetings!

Season's Greetings!

NGC 7662 (also known as the Blue Snowball Nebula, Snowball Nebula or Caldwell 22) is a planetary nebula located in the constellation Andromeda.

The distance to this nebula is not known with any real accuracy. According to the Skalnate Pleso Catalogue (1951) the distance of NGC 7662 is about 1,800 light years, the actual diameter about 20,000 AU. In a more recent survey of the brighter planetaries, C.R.O'Dell (1963) derived a distance of 1,740 parsecs or about 5,600 light years, increasing the actual size to 0.8 light year, or nearly 50,000 AU. It has a faint central star that is variable, with a magnitude range of 12 to 16.^[4] The central star is a bluish dwarf with a continuous spectrum and a computed temperature of about 75,000K. The nuclei of the planetary nebulae are among the hottest stars known.^[5]

NGC 7662 is a popular planetary nebula for casual observers. A small telescope will reveal a star-like object with slight nebulosity. A 6" telescope with a magnification around 100x will reveal a slightly bluish disk, while telescopes with a primary mirror at least 16" in diameter may reveal slight color and brightness variations in the interior.

Solar Activity and Winter Observing

We could be going through Solar max now: 
 Latest graph: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/

The latest graph of sunspot count:

SUBSIDING STORM: Last night, Nov. 13/14, Northern Lights spilled across the Canadian border into the United States during a moderately strong (Kp=6) geomagnetic storm. Spotters report naked-eye auroras just barely over Colorado. Cal is always possible so keep looking up and North. Active Astro sites prove to be the best for catching aurora posts but this NOAA page gives you a Kp map - Click on North America:
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/Aurora/#kpmaps

Click to images to enlarge!

This Email alert can hedge you bets for solar flares and aurorae - I use it for h-alpha:
Real Time e-mail Solar Flare Alert: http://www.ips.gov.au/mailman/listinfo/ips-flare-alert  (see also http://www2.gi.alaska.edu/AuroraAlerts/ )

Solar Observing Nov 4th

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

Take The Sunspot Quiz:

http://solar-center.stanford.edu/quizzes/sunspot_quiz_flash.html 

Solar Observing November 4th was sublime. Nice because the weather was perfect - cool temperature, clear skies and fair seeing. The Sunspot count was in the 40's with 4 sunspot pairs - two above the solar equator - two "mirror images" below. That was too neat to see :)

The symmetry of the Sun's magnetic field lines means that a sunspot pair which forms above the equator can equally likely form a mirror image below the equator - a negative ( -x , -y )  mirror image.

Sunspot generally form in pairs.

A sunspot pair can again be formed as a mirror image below the sun's equator because of the symmetry of the sun's magnetic field.

H-Alpha Prominences were large and notable all around the solar disk: hedge shape, spicule and branching tree shapes noted.

Folks we are a just a standard deviation from the solar cycle maximum. 

Happy Halloween

Lecture On The Sun

Wednesday, October 17, 2012 - 12:00pm

Climate Change: What's Going On With the Sun?

SETI Institute: 189 Bernardo Avenue #100, Mountain View

Watch online:
https://plus.google.com/events/csqif06cn5u5auhv7bbsigr471o 

Dan Lubin

SETI Institute

Throughout the past century, while greenhouse gas (GHG) abundances have been steadily increasing and influencing Earth’s climate, the Sun has remained relatively bright and quiescent. Solar cycles have been steadily active, with instantaneous sunspot numbers at solar maximum exceeding 100 in every cycle since 1893 (Cycle 13). The climate warming we have experienced since the beginning of the modern industrial era cannot be attributed to the Sun. However, the recent minimum between Cycles 23 and 24, and NASA predictions of a substantially lower sunspot number at the 2013 solar maximum, suggest that the Sun’s recent bright and quiescent period may be ending. Both autocorrelation studies of recent solar cycles, and studies of solar analogs in nearby field stars, suggest a >40% chance of the Sun entering a new Maunder Minimum sometime in the Twenty First Century. During the historical Maunder Minimum (1645-1715), meteorological data from Europe and proxy records from global oceans indicate a substantially cooler climate, attributable to decreased solar irradiance. In our lifetime, we may therefore see a period of solar dimming in conjunction with increasing GHG abundances. A new Maunder Minimum would not entirely offset the projected GHG-induced warming (the GHG radiative forcing is at least three times larger than best estimates of the solar irradiance decrease). Instead, the complex interactions between radiative balance and atmospheric dynamics yield unusual regional patterns of pronounced warming versus cooling. This seminar will address the physical basis of climate change in the context of both GHG and solar variability, and will also extend the discussion to the influence of stellar variability upon habitable zones.

October Sun 1x Visible Sunspots

OCTOBER 1st

Visible Sunspots over next couple of days!

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

Sunspot or active region AR 1582 is a 1x spot. And so is AR 1579 which is just barely visible. Is it to the right or left? :)

Over next couple of days one will still need good eyes and a good solar filter to see these (and welding glass wont cut it). Solar glasses are good, Solar Cards better. 

Malika Carter: Sunspot image with her eyepiece projection system. Click photo to enlarge.

For those of you who have H-alpha scopes: Good prominences at limb particularly at ~5 O'clock refactor view -  prominence drapes over the photosphere creating a sinuous filament.

Clear Magnitude -26.73 skies Michael Packer