Lunar Eclipses : a Tetrad

Starting April 15, 2014 with the first total lunar eclips, three other total lunar eclipses will follow. The takes place in September '14, April '15 and September '15. Having four consecutive total lunar eclipses are called a Tetrad. This is rather rare but this century it will happen a couple of times.
All of these will be visible in North America and are not visible in the BNL.

See also this nice video from Science@Nasa

Cumulus 1.9.4 for WMR200

Software review Cumulus 1.9.4 - Sandysoft
The weatherstation WMR200 from Oregon Scientific running on Cumulus 1.9.4 from Sandysoft.
After downloading, the software on OS W7 was installed in the root as mentioned in the read.me files. The help file was used to configure the station aswell as the internet options.
Twitter accounts works easy and fast. The internet connection to Wunderground was also done.
As the data from the logger was used no data could be uploaded when the PC was disconnected from the weatherstation. Even after date change in the cumulus.ini file, no data could be uploaded.
Setting of the weatherstation was changed to 15 minutes in order to generate more memory capacity. This still needs to evaluated.
So so far so good and I appreciate the twitter updates aswell as the connection to Wunderground.

Software for WMR200

Since March 1 I'm the owner of a new weatherstation from Oregon Scientific. The WMR200 model is equipped with rain, wind and outside temperatures gauges. And the model can be connected with your PC. The software delivered with the WMR is outdated but the website of Oregon brings you to the download site for software running  OS W7.

This is an evaluation up to today of different I used for my WMR200.

Weather OS 1.2.01
This software is downloaded from the Oregon site and once installed it's only a matter of connecting the weather station to your PC.
The software picks up the WMR200 rather slow (2 minutes)  and shows the most important indicators. The setting for the region is limited to neighbour cities and can not be changed to your own city.
Within the menu you can view the long term data from all recorded indicators. This data is also easely to export using CSV files.
The systems is a standalone system without internet connection for updating websites or email.

Virtual Weather Station Base Edition 14.01
This software is recommended by Oregon and is aswell offered from the Oregon site. After installation free registration is needed which is delivered by oregon.
After connecting the Weather station is takes aswell a couple of minutes to have the readings.
The display can be set according your own preferences and for all availbable indicators. This looks very professional. The recorded data shown in the graphs are limited to 15 minutes which limites viewing trends. In the base version no data can be exported aswell no internet connection is possible. For that a upgrade is needed and need to be payed.

Sandysoft Cumulus 1.9.4
Easy and free installation from the website. Same as with other software, connection with WMR200 takes some minutes before showing all data.
Nice and clear overwiew and I liked how the winddirection and speed is presented.
Long term data is shown on graphs. It's not clear if this data is gathered from the weather station or from the data captured during the time the system is connected to the PC. This could not be figured out. This system makes it possible to connect with the internet and even with Twitter.
Overtime I will try avaluating this software again - when I'm having some more time:)

WMR Data Logger Sniffer
Download and installation was easy. However I could not start the system once connection was made with my Weather station. I tried different settings but unfortunately no connection could be made with the sensors.

Conclusion
My journey finding the software I need and is fullfilling my needs is still ongoing but looks promissing.

Evidence on how our universe began

This week scientists realeased the news of evidence how the universe began. The theory explains that a fraction of a second (read 10-32s after the big bang) the universe rapidly expanded which we call the inflation. In this period quantum effects are still dominant so no real direct evidence to prove the theory. Indirectly however scientics could observe the afterglow using the Bicep2 observatory at the south pole. This afterglow is the cosmic microwave radiation (CMR) which could have all data when travelling through space. Observers found specific polarazation (B-Mode) of the CMR which can be explained from gravitazional waves. And these gravitazional waves are the first withnesses of our early universe.

 

This image provided by the BICEP2 Collaboration shows slight temperature fluctuations, indicated by variations in color, of the cosmic microwave background of a small patch of sky and the orientation of its polarization, shown as short black lines. Researchers say since the cosmic microwave background is a form of light, it exhibits all the properties of light, including polarization. The changes in a particular type of polarization, indicated here, are theorized to be caused by gravitational waves. These waves are signals of an extremely rapid inflation of the universe in its first moments. (AP Photo/BICEP2 Collaboration) -Ref. Phys.Org

If you want to read more see BICEP2 2014 News release website

Astronomical start of spring

Start of the astronomical spring in the Northern Hemisphere. Exactly @ 17h5, March 20th the sun crosses the equinox.  Day & night are same in length.



Virtual Weather Station Display

 

 

Still experimenting with different software. This is the display from Virtual Weather Station.

First Display WMR 200

OS Weather Software set up for Windows 7 - Dutch setting.