3 Weeks to go

to experience the solar eclipse across 3000 miles in America.

Iron Chrystal

Our national symbol still shining day and night. The Atomium visualizes an iron chrystal but 165 billion times enlarged.

Clouds

Unfortunately too many clouds in order to see the Mercury occultation 😢

Partial Daylight Occultation of Mercury

This morning, low above the eastern horizon, a partial occultation of Mercury will occur when Mercury will be partially concealed by the Moon. It will be difficult as the Moon is only 2 days old and 5% illuminated and it happens at 10° above the horizon.  The event will be happening around 7h43 UT (9h43 local)
So be very carefull as the sun will be at close proximity!

Nikon D850

After the introduction of the new Nikon D7500 earlier this year, Nikon announces the NIKON D850, replacing their Nikon D810.

Planets visible during Eclipse Aug 21, 2017

Which stars and planets will be visible during the solar eclipse of  August 21, 2017?
North-West of the eclipse will Mars and Venus show up. South-East is Mercurius visible. Just above the eastern horizon will Jupiter be seen. South-East of the eclipse the bright star Regulus can be found.
Information provided for Rexburg (ID).

Hemel - Ciel - Sky

Between July 22nd and September 3th, the Royal Palace in Brussels will host the exposition "Science and Culture" with the theme "Hemel - Ciel - Sky". See also this link.

Have fun !

Venus - Moon Conjunction July 20

Composition made by Guido Gubbels

Some more pictures of the conjunction between the planet Venus and the Moon on July 20 around 12h UT. A summary of the observation is also available on the VVS website.

Moon 11% illuminated - Venus bright NE of the Moon a couple of minutes after conjunction

My picture published in newspaper

My picture of the moon with airplane was published in the national newspaper "Het Nieuwsblad" on July 20th.

One month to go for totallity

Total Sun Eclips in the US.. only one month to go.

Venus in Conjunction with Moon

In total 6 members of Astronomy club Helios gathered together to observe the conjunction between Venus and the Moon. Around 12h UT the moon was about 11% illuminated and Venus was 3° NE of the Moon.

Heliographic Coordinates

In order to define anything on the photosphere of the Sun we need to measure this in terms of heliographic latitude and longitude. This changes by time due to :
1) the fact Earth - Sun distance changes
2) the rotation of the Sun
3) the rotation axis of the Earth being inclined by 23.4° to the ecliptic
4) the rotation axis of the Sun being inclined by 7.25° to the ecliptic

This can be calculated once we have
1) the apparent diameter of the Sun
2) the heliographic latitude B0 of the centre of the Sundisk
3) the heliographic longitude L0 of the centre of the Sundisk
4) the position angle P of the north end of the axis of rotation, when positive it is east of the north point

In a later blog I will post more details about this calculation. Below is the Sun (with Sunspot) including the position angle. The software used was HelioViewer from Peter Meadows.

North is defined by taking two pictures with tracking modus off when using an equatorial set up. By drawing a line between the two sunspots and turning this horinzontal, we find north - south of the Sun.

The "north" positioned Sun (BMP format) is uploaded within HelioViewer. Once your settings (position, time) are entered, the software calculates all coordinates and makes a final drawing of the Sun with Heliographic coordinates.

Moon with Airplane

Beautiful and lucky shot of moon with airplane.

Moon-Venus 32h before Conjunction

The planet Venus and the Moon as seen this morning just before sunrise above the eastern horizon. This is 32h before the Venus-Moon conjunction on July 20 around 12hUT.

Verandering van weer

Send by iPhone 6 iOS 10.3.2


Bewolking vanuit het zuiden. Hopelijk blijft het droog deze nacht.

Lecture Prof. Erik Verlinde

On October 4th, Prof. Erik Verlinde will give a lecture in Maastricht regarding new insights on gravity and time-space.

Sunspot AR2665

Sunspot AR2665 is still 100.000km end to end, which is still 8 times the size of the Earth. The pictures are taken using my triplet APO80/480 f/6 with a APS-C DSLR. Final editing done using CS4.

Sunspot with IPhone 6

Huge sunspot this evening!

Rainbow at Sunset

Just before sunset a bright rainbow colored the evening sky above #Averbode.

Beautiful Sunset

#VRTWEER Beautiful Sunset #Averbode with in the background my weatherstation WMR200.

Huge Sunspot AR2665

Since a couple of days and also next week, a very huge Sunspot (AR2665) is visible on the sun's surface. The spot is as big as 10x earth, which is about 120.000 km end to end. The spot is also responsible for some activity and resulted already in a M1.3 flare.

The picture below was taken when the sun was covered with a lot of clouds. Hopefully the next days it will be better to photograph the spot.

Moon 99%

Almost full moon.

Noctilucent Clouds #NLC

The last couple of days it was possible to see noctilucent clouds above northern Europe and even in Belgium. The following night we will have a clear sky in Belgium, so who knows and with some luck we can observe the #NLC.  The Leipniz Institute has a radar installed to track NLC. See this link. This can help to plan your observations. Good Luck !

Great Edition of Sun Observation Day

This year was again a great edition of the Sun Observation Days. Astronomy club Helios was present at "Het Moment" in Averbode with four telescopes of which 2 Dobsons, one refractor and one Lunt Solartelescoop. A couple of hundred people did visit us and looked at the sun and questioning many questions.

Vandaag Zonnekijkdag in Het Moment Averbode

Vandaag kan je vanaf 14h in Het Moment te Averbode terecht om naar de zon te kijken. Met speciale filters en telescopen kun je zelf de zon op een veilige manier ontdekken. Leer meer over zonnevlekken en wie weet zie je zelf wel een zonnevlam. Leden van sterrenclub Helios zullen in de namiddag aanwezig en zullen graag een woordje uitleg geven.
Klik hier voor link naar zonnekijkdag.

June Weather Summary

June 2017 was average 3°C warmer then 2014, 2015 and 2016. Rainfall and raindays was the same as in years 2014 and 2015.

50 days to Eclips

Counting ... 50 days to eclips.