ISS July 17, 2022 (Tyrol Austria)

The International Space Station above Tyrol (Bichlbach Austria) on July 17, 2022 (UT21h26).

Setting: Nikon D7500 18mm f/3.5 ISO6400 with exposure time of 13s).

Milky Way @Bichlbach (Austria)

Picture taken of the Milky Way in Bichlbach (Austria - Tyrol) at the border with Germany. A clear sky with no Moon and the picture was taken between the mountain with a light cone from the town itself aswell as the mountaintop Zugspitze.

Setting : Nikon D7500 18mm f/3.5 ISO6400 and exposure time of 13s.

Visiting Virgo (EGO) Cascina

Today I (together with my Family) visited the Virgo center (European Gravitational Observatory) at Cascina near Pisa in Italy. The road for the last 2km were terible and my car was almost damaged!

The tour started with only 5 of us and later on 2 more Polish people joined. The presentation at the seminar room was clear and to the point. Next we visited the main building office and getting more in depth technical information about the mirrors (these look like glass but do reflect the infrared laser light), the vacuumsystem, the michelson interfermeter, the pendulum system (7 pieces),…

Thereafter we could get into the tube system (which is 3km in total and another 3km for the other one which is 90' oriented). In side the main building we could see the laser, the laserrecuperation system, the beamsplitter, the mirror to resend the laserbeam up to 100times back and forth before getting back into the splitter and to the detector.

The Virgo detector is currently upgraded and to be commissioned and should be ready next spring. Currently Virgo detected more the 80 gravitational waves and typical one per week. With the upgrade expectations are to record gravitational waves on a daily base.

Thx to the Virgo team to share the information and showing us the location in detail.

Double Rainbow

A bright double rainbow with the dark Alexander's band between the two bows. The mainbow has also some interferencebows. The picture was taken and the border of Lago Maggiore (Italy).

Cosmic rays and sunspot numbers Solar Cycle #25

I relooked into the data to see if the current increases sunspots of solar cycle (cycle #25) has a impact on decreased cosmic rays. The data I used was :

1) Sunspot data from Royal Observatory of Belgium, Brussels (WDC-SILCO-SIDC) with
2) Galactic Cosmic Rays data from University of Oulo, Finland

The data was plotted, starting from Jan 2009 till last month June 30, 2022. The graph is still showing an inverse correlation between solar minimum/maximum and cosmic radiation min/max.

see also my previous blog on this subject : link. 

The mechanism is believed that the sun during a less active period, the sun's magnetic field will be weaker with decreasing solar wind. This solar wind acts as a shield to protect Earth against high energetic cosmic rays. During solar minimum, those high energetic cosmic rays penetrate further into Earth's atmosphere resulting in more counts/s. This is what the Neutron Monitoring System of groundstation Oulu (Finland) detects.

The sources of high energetic cosmic rays (typically 5-30GeV) are from beyond our Solar System and even from outside our own milky way and thus Galactic and Intergalactic. For that we talk about (Inter)Galactic Cosmic Rays.

Magnetic and Geographic North

When you use a magnetic compass, the needle points to the Magnetic North. This is a slightly different direction than the True Geographic North, which is along the Xaxis of our coordinate system. The angle difference between True North and Magnetic North is called magnetic Declination angle D. It is positive if the compass needle points to the east of True North, and negative if it points to the west of True North. This is a very important number to keep track of for navigation.

So what is the magnetic declination in my backyard? 

According NOAA data (see this link) the declination is about 1,999°

The magnetic Inclination angle, I, also called the Magnetic Dip angle, is a measure of how steeply a magnetic field line passes into the surface of Earth. If you were to hold a compass perfectly horizontal, it would 'point North' but its tip would also dip vertically to the ground. This feature was first discovered in 1581 by the English mariner and compass builder, Robert Norman.

So what is the magnetic inclination in my backyard? 

According NOAA data (see this link) the inclination is about 66,35°

What about Bx, By, Bz and the total magnetic intensity B? 

According NOAA data (see this link) Bx=19644nT  By=685nT  Bz= 44898nT

The total magnetic Intensity B= 49012nT

According my iPhone B=47580nT (using App Physics Toolbox Sensor Suite)

Magnetism - NASA Magnetic Math

I found a good basic description of magnetism especially as it applies to earth's magnetic field and solar activity.  Despite the fact that, next to gravity, magnetism is the most popularly-known force of nature, there are surprisingly few resources available. 

Via this link I found some good lectures included exercises : 

- NASA SpaceMath

- Magnetic Math