Castel Gandolfo & Astronomy

This week I was in Castel Gandolfo close to Rome, Italy. The area is also know for the summer residence and vacation retrait for the Pope.

The Apostolic Palace of Castel Gandolfo is located at the borders of Lake Albano which is formed by two small volcanic craters with a max depth of 170m and measures 3,5x2,3km.

Interesting however are the 4 observatories located at Castel Gandolfo. Two of them are part of the Pope's Palace and two are located within Papal Gardens.
According to the information I found the Observatory's Headquarter is still at Castel Gandolfo, however the telescope's from the palace are moved to Arizona. It's not clear for me what's inside the domes in the Papel gardens. Some refering to a 26¨ f/3,7 Schmidt telescoop in one dome and in the other dome the Carte Du Ciel telescope (Astrophotgrafy Aperture 33cm, focal Length 3,43m). The Vatican was part of the Carte Du Ciel Project together with 19 other observatories, including the one in Uccle.

Anyway the location is very beautiful and I clearly understand why this is vacation retrait of the Pope.

See also this website for the http://www.vaticanobservatory.org/

Earth in universe - local galactic group - Virgo supercluster

Where are we located within the Universe?

Our planet Earth is part of the solar system together with 7 other planets. Next, our Solar system is located within the Orion Arm of our Milky Way Galaxy.

Our Milky Way Galaxy together with M31 Andromeda Galaxy (2million ly away from us) and more then 30 other smaller galaxyes are part of the Local Galactic Group.

More then 100 kind of these local galactic groups form another group called the Virgo Supercluster.

Currently many of these superclusters are what we today call the Observable universe.

Source Wikipedia.

Record views

I uploaded this picture via twitter resulting in 2079 views, 8 retweets, 3 favorites and 12 link visits. Amazing how a picture can connect people. 

Observing the sun today

When weather allows and the sun will be shining Helios will be present in Mi Maan @herselt as part of the annual national sun observation day. We will be present as from 14h.

Noctilucent clouds

The picture was taken July 4th in the early morning @Averbode. This picture was made in RAW format with an exposure of 2s and ISO200. Editing using CS4 was  done to show more details.
The clouds are the highest one on earth we currently know and are located between 76 en 85km altitude. They consist of tiny ice crystals and dust and can only be seen when the sun is below the horizon. Best observation is during the summer months and at latitudes between 50° - 70°.

Noctilucent Cloud @ Averbode

Beautiful Noctilucent clouds above Averbode. About 15° above the horizon, North-North-East 4h15 AM  I could witness some beautiful noctlucent clouds. This was my first time I was able to see this.

On top you will also recognize the big dipper.

June Weather Data

June Weather data from Weatherstation WMR 200 edited by Wunderground.

See also WMR 200 Live data