The sun today - Nov 30, 2016

Picture of the sun taken with Coronado PST40 and zoom 24mm - afocal. Editing done with CS4 and comparison with SDO 304.

Almost perfect! Airplane in H𝛂

Temperature this morning was about -8.8°C and the sky is clear with a few clouds high in the sky. So time to make some pictures using my Coronado PST. Unfurtunately no sunflames could be observed but I could take a picture of the sun with an airplane in H𝛂. Almost perfect :)

Startrail above abbey of Averbode

Clear sky this evening but real cold with -2¨C at this moment. The picture shows the abbey of Averbode with it's startrail. Picture is made of 60 photo's each with an exposure of 30s. Stacking was completed using Startrails and modified using CS4.

Moon & Jupiter at sunrise

On the morning of November 25th, both the Moon and Jupiter could be observed 30° above the south-eastern horizon. The Moon is waning crescent and 15% illuminated, Jupiter is seen 3° west of the moon. Picture taken around 7h50 local time.

Reverse colors of double rainbow - Alexander's band - Supernumerary band

Using CS4 to highlight the colors and to enhance the contrast shows the revers order of the colors of the second rainbow. It also shows much better the darkness between the two rainbows, which is called Alexanders dark band. And finally the picture shows also the green band underneath the violet color of the first rainbow which is called a supernumerary band.

Wow a Supernumerary Double Rainbow

Clouds, rain and sun ... the perfect ingredients for a perfect rainbow. Above Aarschot I took below pictures which not only show a perfect double rainbow but a supernumerary double rainbow.

According literature a supernumerary rainbow is defined when below the first rainbow more colors are seen beyond the normal colors. As seen on the pictures a "white" band is seen below the violet color which when enlarged consist of faint colors of green and violet. So we see from the outside to the inside red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet and then green and violet.

As I was not sure and did ask for a second opinion to Frank Deboosere, our national weatherman and amateur astronomer. And he confirmed the supernumerary band aswell. 

Eclips August 11, 1999 Virton

When searching for a picture I found some old pictures of the solar eclipse of August 11, 1999 which I observed near Virton, Belgium. Unfortunately clouds made it difficult to see the entire spectacle.

Supermoon above Averbode

Great supermoon above Averbode !!

Weather Picture in Nieuwsblad

Great to see that today another picture of mine is published in "Het Nieuwsblad"

Supermoon on November 14th- really Super?

What's in the name? On November 14th 12h21 MET the distance moon-earth will be as close as 356509km. Why is this important? It's because this happens on almost the same moment when the moon is full (14h52 MET). It's calculated that the moon will be 14% "bigger" and about 30% "more bright". As all this happens during daytime, best observation is the morning of Nov 14th or at evenings. Will you notice the difference... not really.
The last time the moon was that close happened on Jan 26th, 1948 (356461km). On November 25th, 2034 the moon will be even closer with 356445km.
So why should you look at the moon? Only it's because you know that it was about 68 years ago the moon was that close. Super right?

Tiangong 2 - Visible

This evening and upcoming evenings and of course when clouds do agree to open, you can observe the Chinese vessel Tiangong 2 above the southern horizon.  For Belgium see timings below, for other locations see website Heavens-Above.

Launch of new Nikon D5600

Nikon will shortly launch the new Nikon DSLR camera Nikon D5600.
See also Nikon Website

Picture in nieuwsblad

Today, my picture of the abbey of Averbode was published in the newspaper "Het Nieuwsblad".

Solargraph missing in action

One of my pinhole camera's are installed near the abbey of Averbode since mid June - see blog. This morning during a routine inspection I noticed the camera dissapeared. Bad luck! I still have one camera running at home which I hope will make it till december 21 :)

If you want to make your own pinhole camera capturing a solargraph - see my webpage DIY Solargraph. 

View on the abbey of Averbode - Pinhole camera was installed in this area.

The Sun Today

In between the clouds, I could take some pictures of the sun using PST40.

October 2016 Weather Summary

The weather from October 2016 is comparable with the one from October 2015. Avg temperatures rather warm and it with only 35,9mm rain it was also a dry month.