Solar Eclips is now Live

Horseshoe Bend

Biggest one piece sandstone in the US. At only a couple of miles from Page, Arizona, you witness 100 million years of natures force. But today the Colorado river provides this best view.

Solar Eclipse - 10 days to go

The next solar eclipse will be on August 21, 2017, so 10 days to go.

Solarbeams

Sunset with low hanging clouds often result into bright solarbeams.

WOW Six Rare Halo's around the Sun this Afternoon

Late afternoon, at the moment the sun was about 24° above the horizon and the sky was covered with high clouds it was possible to observe a total of 6 rare halo's.

1) left and right of the sun, very bright sun dogs could be observed
2) a 22° halo around the sun connecting the two sun dogs
3) on top of the 22° halo, an upper tangent arc
4) on top of the upper tangent arc, the rare Parry arc, it's faint but it's there
5) at 70°, so almost at zentih, the very bright circumzenithal arc
6) south of the circumzenithal arc and connecting to it, the supralateral arc

All 6 rare halo's around the sun

All 6 rare halo's around the sun (black & white)

Bright Circumzenithal arc

Sunspot AR2670

This morning the sun is shining again and thus time to make some final tests for my settings during
the upcoming solar eclipse. Using a tripod with extra balance weight will be necessary in order to have a stable image. The total load is 3633 g which is more then the max tripod load of 2000g. But I will take the risk :)

Currently sunspot AR2670 is vissible on the disc which is the remain of sunspot AR2665 which could be seen 25 days ago.

Weather Summary July

When comparing with the last 4 years, this year's July is a little colder (-1°C) and has some more rainfall. Interesting to see is that all 4 previous years have about 10 rain days.