Waning Gibbous Moon

Picture taken with Nikon D60 body and Celestron d70/f400 telescoop. Picture modified using CS4.

Lunar Diffraction Ring

Sun eclips march 20, 2015

Still 6 months to go to plan for the sun eclips. The eclips will be seen in Europe on march 20, 2015.
It is the last total eclips in europe untill 2026. Totallity occurs in a vary wide path of more than 400km but north of europe as in the Faroe Islands and Spitsbergen.  In Belgium we will be seeing a partial eclips with 80% of suns surface covered by the moon. The entire eclips can be seen in the morning of march 20, when of course the sky is without any clouds!

Meteorites at the American Museum of Natural History in New York

Beside animals, Dino's, culture, ... the American Museum of Natural History in New York has a also a big collection of meteorites. The classification is well explained and some really big meorites are presented.

I like also the new Hayden Big Bang Theater.

Together with the theater it shows a cosmic Pathway laying out the 13 billion year history of our universe and scales of the universe illustrating the size of the universe till the size of sub atomic particles.

Smithsonian National Space and Air Museum Washington DC

Visiting the current capital Washington DC of the USA means also visiting the famous Smithsonian National Space and Air Museum located at the Mall.

I spend more about 4h in the museum but you could walk around for days.

The exibition is enormous with focus on planes, the space race, the moon landings, space shuttles, space stations and many many more.

In the entry hal you already can touch a moon rock and you see the original Apollo 11 Command Module Columbia. This was the only partian of the spacecraft (eagle and service module) that returned back to earth together with Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins.

This is an actual Apollo Lunar Module, one of the 12 built. It was the second LM2 which would be part of Apollo 6 but was not needed as Apollo 5 was very succesfully. 

Apollo -Soyuz test project connecting an US and USSR space ship in 1975

Mercury Friendship Space craft bringing the first American in Space. John Glenn was the second man in space after Yoeri Gagarin.

The Hubble Space Telescope Structural Dynamic test Vehicle (SDTV)

This is the actual back up of the primary mirror of the Hubble Space Telescope. In total two identical primary mirrors are built. One in space, one in the Smithsonian.

One of three engines of the Space Shuttle.  Also the F-1 Engine from the Saturn rocket is shown. This one of the 5 engines from the Saturn and built in the 70'.

If you have ever the chance to visit Washington DC, make sure you visit the Smithsonian National Space and Air Museum!

Space Shuttle Enterprise Pavilion

Seeing the Space Shuttle in real live? It is possible in the Intrepid, Sea, Air and Space Museum Complex at Pier 86 in New York













A board the aircraft carrier Intrepid the Space Shuttle is located within the Space Shuttle Pavilion at the back of the flight deck.

 The Space Shuttle "Enterprise". Standing next to the shuttle you realize how huge this shuttle is.
The Enterprise was the first shuttle build for testing purpose. It was build in 1977 !! The 5 other shuttles Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour.

Record Rain @ Averbode

Today, August 8th severe rain @ Averbode. Registration of 42.2mm of rain.