SIDC Lectures 07 available now!

Lecture 7 of the SIDC series of Lectures on Basic Solar Physics is out now. It is expected that SIDC will release 13 Lectures on the same topics and according to their planning this is planned for the next 3 months. The video's are available via the Youtube channel and can be seen via this link.

These Lectures are very interesting and provide you all the Basics (and more) you ever wanted to know about the Sun and how it all works. Special thanks to the Royal Observatory of Belgium.

Vesta in the morning sky

The next month's the asteroid Vesta, the second largest asteroid of the asteroid belt, is visible at the morning sky. A binocular or small telescoop is enough to observe Vesta. I found some interesting moments to observe Vesta like NGC or Messier objects :

February 4th : Vesta near phi Ophiuchus (see chart below) and Mars
March 6th : Vesta near NGC 6356
April 3rd : Vesta near NGC 6507
May 24th : Vesta near M24
June 15th : Vesta near M23
June 23rd : Vesta near NGC 6440

Vesta near phi Ophiuchus in the morning of feb 4th - source Stellarium

Sterrenkijkdagen op 23 en 24 Februari

Op vrijdag 23 en zaterdag 24 februari 2018 kan je op meer dan 25 plaatsen in Vlaanderen ‘s avonds gaan kijken naar de Maan en de sterren. Sterrenwachten en amateur-astronomen zetten die dagen op de verschillende waarnemingsplaatsen hun telescopen buiten, waardoor je die avond de Maan en de sterren van dichtbij kan bewonderen.

Wil je weten waar je in Vlaanderen kunt gaan kijken, klik hier voor een overzichtskaartje.

De afdeling Helios zal op zaterdag 24 februari vanaf 19h00 aanwezig zijn te Langdorp (Wolfs café Langdorpsesteenweg 297, 3201 Langdorp).

Solar Eclipse Conference 2018 in Belgium

It is announced that the next Solar Eclipse Conference will take place from Thursday 2nd until Sunday 5th August 2018 at Cosmodrome Kattenvennen in Genk, Belgium. 

This is the week after the lunar eclipse and the week before the partial solar eclipse in Scandinavia. 

On Thursday there is a possibilty to discover the local City Genk. Thursday evening is the conference opening reception. On Friday, Saturday and Sunday several lectures will be scheduled. Sunday evening is our farewell event. 

The following speakers are already confirmed:

Jay Anderson, Fred Espenak, Jay Pasachoff, Bill Kramer, Petra Vanlommel (Solar-Terrestrial Centre of Excellence located in Belgium), Xavier Jubier, a speaker from Google, Sheridan Williams, David Dunham (web presentation), Jörg Schoppmeyer, Jean-Luc Dighaye, Daniel Fischer, Kris Delcourte, Nick James ... and others will follow.

Preregistration is open via this link.

Weather Summary January

January 2018 was a rainy, windy and warm month.

The Day After

One day after the Super Blue Moon. Picture taken in Averbode with zoomlens; cropped and edited using CS4.

Jupiter, Mars and Vesta

January was cloudy all over but last night we had a clear sky. Not only we had a Blue Moon but this morning I was able to observe Jupiter, Mars and Vesta low above the South-Eastern horizon. Jupiter is located within the constellation Libra while Mars and Vesta can be seen within Scorpius.