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.

Mercury Transit November 11, 2019

On May 9th, 2016 a Mercury transit was observed in Belgium. This rare event will occur again in Belgium on Novermber 11, 2019. So make sure you block your agenda 

Above are the timetables for the Mercury Transit in Belgium.

Increased Cosmic Rays - Solar Cycle #24 minimum

Solar Cycle #24 is moving in to a minimum with more and more sunspots free days. As a result the sun will be less active and the magnetic field will be weaker with decreasing solar wind. This solar wind acts as a shield to protect Earth against high energetic cosmic rays. Based on historical data we see an inverse correlation between the sun's activity (sunspot number) and gallactic cosmic rays.

As we are moving into a "quit" period I took data from 1/1/2014 - today and compared :
1) Sunspot data from Royal Observatory of Belgium, Brussels (WDC-SILCO-SIDC) with
2) Gallactic Cosmic Rays data from University of Oulo, Finland

It's not outspoken but we see clearly an inverse correlation between the sunspot data and the cosmic ray activity.

Also Spaceweather.com is tracking these changes with balloonflights above the US. Since 2015, levels of radiation increased up to 19%.

Saturn June 18

Some more experimenting with AutoStakkert! 2.6.8 in order to get more details of my Saturn observations. Frames were taken using ASI224MC on TAL200K f/10 with capture software Sharpcap 2.8 and editing with CS4. Saturn shows up with some minor details on the planet and the rings have clearly the Cassini division.