July 5th Flanders Solar Viewing Day

Today July 5th the Flanders region of Belgium organised a Solar Viewing Day. Together with many other organisation also Helios was present.

After an entire week of sunshine and more then 35°C, today was a cloudy day and we even got some rain. Luckely we could observe the sun and had some interested visitors aswell.

Halo 22° and Upper Tangent Arc

This evening, nice halo's 22° on both side of the sun. And a couple of minutes later I could withness a upper tangent arc aswell.

Solargraph 2014-2015

It's always a special and exciting moment when you open the pinholecamera. In total 6 months exposure to all kind of weather conditions : snow, rain, freezing, fog and sunny.
This time two pinhole camera's were installed with the following result.

Beautiful sundog

This evening, low at the sky, a beautiful sundog or phantom sun could be observed.

Phantom sun with on the low-left the top of a balloon.

The sun on the right, the phantom sun on the left. 

Observing the sun on July 5th 2015

On July 5th, 2015, the Flanders region will organize activities to observing the sun.
See also http://www.vvs.be/subsite/zonnekijkdag/ontdek-onze-zon-op-5-juli-2015
I will keep you informed.

Moon 92%

Two days after full moon...

Meteorites under microscope

Helios Astronomy club was invited by one of it's members Lieven - thanks for the nice invitation. On the agenda today, observing meteorites under the microscope. Jan brought along his meteorites collection  - a mars meterorite, a iron meteorite and a rock sample impacted by a meteorite.