Upcoming Bright Comets 2013

For those who want to see comets with the naked eye it could be this year 2013.
Comets Panstarrs and ISON are predicted to become bright at the evening sky. Comet Panstarrs mid March and comet Ison end of November at Northern hemisphere.
See also webpages Heavens-Above and http://www.aerith.net/comet/weekly/current.html - see also interesting links via my blog.
Current observations show Panstarrs magnitude around 8 and expecting to get as bright as magnitude 3.

Halo around the full moon

A nice optical phenomenon, called 22° Halo,  around the Full Moon in Averbode. 

Universal Time

Universal time UT for Belgium :

Wintertime equals Universal time UT + 1h
Summertime equals Universal time UT + 2h ( as from March 31 till October 26)

Projection of the sun @ the sky

 

 

The graph was made based on the input from the website as mentioned earlier and calculated for the location at Averbode (Belgium) using Excel. Calculations done for the first day of the month from Jan till June. Using every time the first day results in the orbit of the sun not crossing the 90/270° in March. Of course this will happen at March 21st - Springtime.

Curious to see of the solargraph will show the same pattern.... :)



Calculating Sun's Path

This is an interesting link to calculate the sun's path across the sky.

http://www.jgiesen.de/astro/english.htm

Hours of sunshine

Last two days better weather with lot's of sunshine. At least for the solargraph as temperature are dropping below the freezingpoint and a min. temperature of -7.1°C
In order to compare the solargraph lines with sunshine hours I will use the sunshine hours from KMI.
This is their website : Sunshine hours KMI

Happy New Year 2013!

Wish you all great astronomical highlights!