3 Days to go: Partial Solar Eclipse October 25

On October 25th, 2022, a partial solar eclipse can be seen in Europe. 

At my home, the eclipse starts from UT9h09 till UT11h. The magnitude is about 0.302. 

Some pictures from previous partical solar eclipses:

Auguts 1, 2008

March 20, 2015

June 10, 2021

Space Weather - Petra Vanlommel @ SIDC Ukkel

During the recent Open Doors at the Space Pole (september 25th) It was possible to visit the Space Weather room. I met Petra Vanlommel who is leading this devision. Some interesting and more detailed information can be found via the Space Weather Introductionary Course 

Balancing a telescope & mount using a clamp meter

Balancing your scope and mount is very important. Typically I do this by hand moving the scope from one side to the other side,  trying to find the tipping point. A couple of weeks ago, Walter, my astronomy collegue, send me a video from Cuiv, The Lazy Geek - see the video 

In this video a clamp meter is used (with Ampere DC features) to measure the current (Ampere) when moving the scope up or down. When the current is the same for both directions, the scope would be balanced.  If not, adjust the weight and measure the current again... and again. 

So... does it work?  To test it, I borrowed from Walter a clamp meter. It's a Chauvin Arnoux F205AC/DC. The test was done with my AZ-EQ6 with TAL200K f/8.5 including all camera's.

Results: the clamp meter is able to measure the current when the mount moves. There is a difference in current when the mount move up or down. The deviation is about 0,1-0,2A when the scope is out of balance. The deviation is reduced to 0,03-0,05A for a balanced mount.

Conclusion: it's possible to balance your mount & scope using a clamp meter. There is an error of about 0,03 - 0,05A even when the scope is balanced. For that reason I stay with my current workprocess balancing my scope by hand, finding the tipping point.

The weather today

Rain and Sun today thus... Rainbows and Sundogs.

Heiko Falcke - Black Hole Lecture @ Leiden

After a 3,5h drive both Walter and myself arrived in Leiden. We found a restaurant " De Vriend" which served food within a half hour time window. The staff was very cooperative to get the food served; we even got time for a dessert. Thx!

Lecture by Heino Falcke on black holes in Leiden. Leiden is currently the City of Science 2022. The mystery of black holes is far from solved, but we do have a picture! It was sensational world news: on April 10, 2019, Heino Falcke, international scientist and preacher in his spare time, presented the very first photograph ever taken of a black hole. What does that space have to teach us about the world, and about ourselves, and maybe even about God? 

During the first hour Prof. dr Heino Falcke talked about black holes and how the first picture was made. After a small break, the setting of the room was changed; the chairs were set in a circle. Due to this setting the scientifical lecture felt like a living room discussion. The audience got the chance to ask questions. Not only scientifical questions but also religious questions.  This set up was a very interesting experience.

 

Prof. dr. Heino Falcke Heino Falcke is professor of Astroparticle Physics and Radio Astronomy at the Institute for Mathematics, Astronomy and Particle Physics (IMAPP) at Radboud University Nijmegen. Falcke is known for his research in the field of black holes. We are not talking about just black holes, but about supermassive black holes. In addition, he is engaged in researching the limits of the universe.

Govert Schilling - The Elephant in the Universe

This evening I, together with my astronomy collegue Walter, attended the lecture "The Elephant in the Universe" on dark matter by Govert Schilling at the University of Maastricht.

The existence of dark matter was first suggested in 1922 by the Dutch astronomer Jacobus Kapteyn. Meanwhile, there are many more convincing clues to the existence of the enigmatic stuff. However, it is unknown what kind of particles the dark matter consists of. Future observation programs may change that, but some physicists are also toying with the idea that dark matter doesn't exist at all, and that instead there is something wrong with our ideas about gravity. In this lecture, Govert Schilling gave a fascinating overview of the search for dark matter - one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in contemporary physics and astronomy.

Some notes taken : Jan Oort, the first one measuring the vertical speed parameter of stars which resulted in calculating the mass of our milky way. Fritz Zwicky measured the speed of Galaxies in the Coma cluster. Vera Ruben, seen asthe mother of Dark Matter, found a flat rotation curve when measuring the verlocity of nebulas in the Andromeda Galaxy. Copernicus, the first space telescope, found that all baryonic matter was created during the big bang based on the % deutereum/proton and thus dark matter can not be normal baryonic. Jim Peebles and the cosmic background radiation, WIMP's, Elana Aprile & Xenon, MOND,... and much more. At the end... our universe consist of 5% baryonic matter, 69% dark energy and 26% dark matter. 

The one note I take away is that, maybe there is a correlation between the inflation process which happened during the first moments after the big bang and the current inflation of the universe . 

Sun in H-alpha AR3116

 

The Sun this morning, Oct 9, 2022. Picture taken in H-alpha with lots of activity in the north-eastern part of sun (region AR3116). 

The gif file below shows the activity in detail - time differnce is 6 minutes. 

Setting: SolarMaxIII 70/400f/5.7 DS, ASI290MM, reducer x0,5
Capture: light ser16bit 1000frames (75% stacked), flats

Software: SharpCap4, AS3!, CS4