Startrail Abbey of Averbode

Startrail with the Abbey of Averbode in the front.  On the right corner you can recognize Orion and Sirius is the bright star on the mid right. Picture was taken with a Nikon D60 using 30 frames each 30s. Picture stacked with Startrail and modified using Photoshop CS4.

Small Moon

The Moon this evening in the west,

Supernova in M82

A few days ago astronomers observed a supernova in M82. M82 is a "nearby" galaxy and located within Ursa Major. The supernova, an exploding star, is currently as bright as magnitude 11 and could become more bright the next few days.

Happy New year 2014

A Happy New Year to all with a lot of astronomical highlights a splended solargraphs and many more!!!

Stormy weather

Last night the barometer showed a lowest of 983 hPa or mbar with lot of rain as the stormy wind was already gone.

2013 Astronomical Highlights

For different reasons 2013 was a exciting astronomical year with many ups and some downs.
On Feb 15 a meteor exploded above Chelyabinsk showing the power and energy from out of space and how mankind could dissapear within a second. On March 14, the CERN finally reported the existance of the Higgsboson. Later the year, Francois Englert received the first physics Nobel Prize for Belgium.
Also in March, I tried to find the comet Panstarr at the evening sky. The sky was beautiful but I could not find the comet.

My first solargraph was a fact with a nice result as well.

One of my cloudpictures was published in the newspaper with a shelfcloud.

This summer it was time to experiment making pictures from Iridium flares and startrails with beautiful results.

Comet ISON would be the event of the year but after watching NASA live the comet dissolved completely. An exciting and learning time following this sungrazer comet.
In Utrecht I visited the NASA's exhibition A Human Adventure telling the history of the space journey.

Coldest place on earth

Check out this awesome image from Astronomy Picture of the Day!

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap131211.html