#500 Blogs

Celebrating my blog #500 all related to promote astronomy, solargraphy or related sciences.

Sunspot AR2659

Sunspot AR2659 is good visible and almost ready to leave to frontview. This picture was taken using Baader AstroSolar film. 

The picture below is from the same sunspot but taken afocal from 24mm ocular and samen settings.

Venus & Airplane during daytime

When observing Venus during daytime an airplane crossed my picture.

Venus during daytime

It was a long time ago I obverved Venus during day time. This afternoon, with a blue sky, I found Venus South West of the sun. My scope was pointed at the sun and using the coordinates from the Astrocalender Heelal. It was rather easy to locate Venus as it showed up as a very bright dot within the finder. Currently Venus is 46% illuminated.

Sun with prominences using PST40

This afternoon the temperature went up till 29,5°C. Clear sky and thus time to take some pictures of the sun using PST40. A total of 3 prominences could be observed.

Blue Sky

Beautifull blue sky above Belgium, time to look at the sun or the moon or Venus.

Moon and Venus at sunrise

On the morning of May 22, Venus and the Moon are visible at sunrise and as close as about 6°.

Sundog

Even with a lot of clouds, it was possible to observe a very faint sundog.

22° Halo around the sun for half a day

Amazing.. the 22° halo could be seen almost the entire morning. I was able to experiment with my camera settings and the picture below was taken with following settings : f/10 18mm ISO100 1/4000s

More Pictures on 22° Circular Halo

Some more pictures of the 22° circular halo around the sun which could be observed this morning @Averbode.

22° Circular Solar Halo @ Averbode

WOW! First time ever I'm witnessing a full halo around the sun. Before, the halo was not entirely full but this morning the 22° halo was circular. A fantastic phenomen easily seen with the naked eye but difficult to photograph.

Hidden Figures

This movie tells the story of three African American female mathematicians who worked at NASA during the space race. Katherine Johnson was part of the Space Task Group and was the first woman getting credit as an author of a research report within the Flight Research Division of NASA. Dorothy Vaughan was the first black supervisor at NASA and working with the IBM7070 using programming language Fortran (which I also used during my engineering degree late 80's).
Mary Jackson became the first black female engineer at NASA and did major contribution towards wind tunnel modelling.

An very interesting movie giving background how things were done during the space race. Today we have computers... at that time all was done using manually!

Bigger Can for Solargraph

Uptill now I always used 500ml cans for making my solargraphs. During my visit in the US I found a bigger can with a volume of 710 ml or 24 Ounces. I will prepare both cans for my solargraphs and expose them  between June and Decemeber. I really hope this 710 ml can is able to capture the sunpath entirely.

Urania Closing the Year

This morning Observatory Urania organised their annual closing meeting. After the presentation on administrative aspects a very interesting overview was given on art and astronomy from ancient history uill today.
Once completed, participants from last year's lectures received their certificats ... including myself as I attended Astrophysics.

Onze zon - De meest nabije ster.

Hierbij de link naar mijn paper over onze zon. Het document beschrijft de huidige stand van zaken rond de werking van de zon, het inwendige van de zon, de atmosfeer van de zon alsook de belangrijkste fenomen die zich kunnen voordoen.

Beautiful clouds

Colored and dynamic clouds in La Grange (Georgia) with temperatures hitting 90F (33C)

100 days to the Eclipse

On August 21, 2017, a total solar eclipse will be seen in big parts of the USA. See also this link.

ATT Essen - Review

Kokerei Zeche Zolverein Essen - Located behind ATT parking spot 

It was my first time ever that I did visit the ATT Essen. It's the biggest European fair for amateur astronomers with both commercial trade and second hand material.
I arrived around 9h45 with plenty of parking space. Arriving at 10am the Gymnasium am Stoppenberg, the entry was blocked with a long waiting row. But 15 minutes later and paying 6 euro entree fee, I could enter the astro arena.
On my way in I did meet with collegues from Astroclub Urania from Hove (Antwerp).

A lot of variation of astro stuff, second hand material and also new equipment -  a total of more then 80 participants. During the day it was also possible to attend some seminars. I attended a lecture on "what an astro beginner need to start with" provided by the local astro club.

Personally I was interested in color filters, red dot finders, wide field oculars and a small apo OTA. At the end I bought one baader "yellow" color filter (as they did not had the color filter series available) and the SkySurfer 3 red dot finder.

I left the fair around 4am and took the time to visit the old mine site located behing the parking spot. This area is UN World Heritage Site and the site was once a very productive and modern mining site.

Some pictures taken during my visit of the site.

Steel frame of cooling towers

Washing of the cokes

Storage tank

ATT Essen

Today, I am at the ATT in Essen. One of the biggest European exposition for amateur aqtronomers.

Quit Sun

Today we had an open and clear sky and thus more then 14h time to observe the sun. Observations were done using my PST40. It was a quit sun without sunspots and two small prominences of which one was more bright then the other one. Both are located at east of the sun (location 4h).

Picture was taken afocal with 8-24mm lens on 24mm. Editing completed using CS4.

Spectrum of the Sun using DIY spectroscope

Clear sky with a bright sun ... so time to take the sun's spectrum using my DIY spectroscope.

WMR 200 during sunset

Beautiful but rather chilly (only 12°C) sunset. Close up of my WMR 200 weather station.

DIY Solargraph

It's time to prepare for your solargraph (pinhole camera). In order to be ready on June 21 see step by step how to build your own solargraphs. It's easy and it's fun :)
Use this link to see solargraph results aswell my step by step approach.

Have fun!

Astro Page - Usefull Links

See my link to Usefull Links for astronomy and related sciences.

Partial 22°Halo and Sun Dogs

This evening, 2h before sunset, some beautiful Sun Dogs and a partial 22° Halo.

The first sun dog showed up at the west of the sun. Afterwards a partial 22° halo could be seen and a couple of minutes later, a bright sun dog at the east site of the sun was visible. 

  

Weather Summary April

As a summary, April was a cold and dry month.
The month of April was 1°C colder than last year and 2°C colder then 2015. With 10 days of frost it can be compared with April 2015. Compared with 2016, 50% less raindays (7 raindays) and 75% less rain (15,7 mm).