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.

Nikon D810A delisted

The one and only astrocamera from Nikon, the Nikon D810A is delisted. I'm wondering if Nikon will come up with a replacement.

Lecture by Govert Schilling - Studium Generale Maastricht

Don't forget to block your agenda. On March 1, Govert Schilling will be talking about the mysterious cosmos. The lecture will take place at 8pm at the University of Maastricht

Lecture by Ed van den Heuvel - Studium Generale Maastricht

Prof. Ed van den Heuvel provided a great presentation on the amazing unity of the universe. He provided more insight in the importance of the inflation moment right after the big bang. He spend some time to explain the shape and the cosmological constant of the universe with focus on the energy and mass density. At last he talked about his thoughs on multiversums. 

Again a great lecture of the Studium Generale series at the University of Maastricht.