Picture Sun PST

Picture a-focal on my PST Coronado 40mm taken and edited by Lieven Philips.

Afocal PST Coronado 40mm July 3th, 2016

DIY Solarfilter

How to make your own solarfilter for your telescoop or camera? This is how you can do it.
What do you need?
Scissor, cardboard, pensil, knife, two sided tape, normal tape and solarfilm.

Step 1 : take the cover shield from your camera or telescoop (in this example it is for my 200mm scope) as a the inner diameter and add 5 cm for the outside diameter. Use the knife to cut the ring.  Complete this step once more for having two sets of rings.

Step 2 : Put two sided tape on both rings and pull the strip off.

Step 3 : Take the solarfim - I'm using astrosolar film from Baader D5.0. Open the sheet and keep it flat by taping the ends on the table. Let one ring with two side tape "fall" on the solarfilter so it sticks to it. Turn it upside down and do the same for the second ring.

Step 4 : Make 3 to 4 long strips of cardboard about 5 cm wide. Fold them around the tube of your telescoop or camera lens and tape the ends together. The result is shown below as a "belt"

Step 5 : Finally tape both the ring with the solarfilm to the belt and make it rigor using normal but strong tape.

Picture taken from the "inside"

Picture taken from the outside. 

Sunset at 10.000m

Sunset during flight from Geneva to Brussels results in beautifull pictures. The picture below was taken on July 5th around 10pm at 10.000m hight using my iPhone 6.

Helios in the news

Astronomy club Helios Averbode in todays newspaper "Het Nieuwsblad".

Helios Sun Observing Day

On July 3th, Helios Astronomy club was present at the national sun observing day. Location this time was the Abbey at Averbode. With 4 telescopes (3 Ha and 1 Newton with Baader) we could welcome more then 120 people and let them show the explosions on the sun. Also present was our founder E.H Gilbert Fleurent which still was very interested and passioned on the clubs activities.

Helios Members with our founder EH G. Fleurent (4th from left)

Solargraph of 1 day

As part of the national sun observing day (July 3th) I installed a pinhole camera at the observing location in Averbode - Belgium. As I wanted the result of 1 day, the pinhole was made larger then normal.

June Weather Summary - wettest June ever since 1833

According to the official KMI in Brussels, june was the wettest ever June since recording in 1833. With 21 days of rain in comparison with 6 days last year I can witness this. In Averbode 157 l/m2 and Temperatures were normal.