Last night I had decent skies, not great, but not bad last night for the first night in a long time, it was a great chance to power up the scope. Trouble is, the scope was all messed up, I knew I needed to align it, but it’s more than that. Needless to say it was pretty frustrating, but that’s the way it goes sometimes. Today, I trashed the firmware in the scope and loaded a different version. Now I just have to wait for another clear night that isn’t twenty below, to see if this fixes the problem and it should.

Anyway, I was very pleased to hear that it sounds like Sunspot cycle 24 is near I am looking forward to it too, I want to try my hand at getting some pictures of an aurora. Pleased, despite the doom and gloom reporting of this from some of the news media.

Not these folks though: From the Space Environment Center:

Official Space Weather Advisory issued by NOAA Space Environment Center Boulder, Colorado, USA

SPACE WEATHER ADVISORY BULLETIN #08 – 12008 January 04 at 06:05 p.m. MST (2008 January 05 0105 UTC)

**** FIRST SOLAR CYCLE 24 POLARITY SUNSPOT OBSERVED ****

The first sunspot region with Solar Cycle 24 polarity was numbered by the Space Weather Prediction Center on January 4 at 2000 UTC (3:00 P.M. EST). The sunspot region was officially numbered as 10981.

This does not mean the new cycle has officially started; however, this is a clear sign Solar Cycle 24 is within sight. Sunspots are tracked because they indicate the level of space weather activity we expect. Solar activity is forecast to reach a peak in 2011 or 2012.

Data used to provide space weather services are contributed by NOAA, USAF, NASA, NSF, USGS, the International Space Environment Services and other observatories, universities, and institutions. More information is available at SWPC’s Web site.

Credit: SEC / NOAA

Source: Cycle 24 is Close

                        

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