Herschel 400 Presentation A.S.H Polaris

Attending presentation on Herschel 400 by Tom Corstjens which took place at A.S.H Polaris in Herentals. Tom provided with passion insight on how to organize for visual observations of Messier and Herschel 400. A good overview was given but most interested are the drawings and sketches he makes of every observation. A key learning I took away is to take time to observe and keep looking at the object. The longer you look at the object the more you will see :)

Weather Summary November

November 2016 was about 4°C colder than November 2015. I registrated 11 air frost days this month versus 6 last year. Rainfall is comparable with last year, aswell as the wind.

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.