Pascal Hilkens Astro Page

Sunday, June 25, 2017

Mercury Transit November 11, 2019

On May 9th, 2016 a Mercury transit was observed in Belgium. This rare event will occur again in Belgium on Novermber 11, 2019. So make sure you block your agenda

Above are the timetables for the Mercury Transit in Belgium.

Increased Cosmic Rays - Solar Cycle #24 minimum

Solar Cycle #24 is moving in to a minimum with more and more sunspots free days. As a result the sun will be less active and the magnetic field will be weaker with decreasing solar wind. This solar wind acts as a shield to protect Earth against high energetic cosmic rays. Based on historical data we see an inverse correlation between the sun's activity (sunspot number) and gallactic cosmic rays.

As we are moving into a "quit" period I took data from 1/1/2014 - today and compared :
1) Sunspot data from Royal Observatory of Belgium, Brussels (WDC-SILCO-SIDC) with
2) Gallactic Cosmic Rays data from University of Oulo, Finland

It's not outspoken but we see clearly an inverse correlation between the sunspot data and the cosmic ray activity.

Also Spaceweather.com is tracking these changes with balloonflights above the US. Since 2015, levels of radiation increased up to 19%.

Saturday, June 24, 2017

Saturn June 18

Some more experimenting with AutoStakkert! 2.6.8 in order to get more details of my Saturn observations. Frames were taken using ASI224MC on TAL200K f/10 with capture software Sharpcap 2.8 and editing with CS4. Saturn shows up with some minor details on the planet and the rings have clearly the Cassini division.

Spicules Explained

Scientists uncover the origins of the dynamic swirling jets called spicules on the sun's surface. The publication was made in Science and a summary can be read via this link here.

Spicules show up as "grass" above the sun's surface but are in reality 7500km long jet's with a speed up to 95 km/s and lasting only 10minutes. Scientist always believed that magnetic fields and charged particles in the sun's atmosphere are responsible for creation of spicules but the mechanism of creation was unclear. Adding neutral particles into the model provides a lot of answers and solves the question on how spicules are created. The magnetic fields move more freely and the neutral particles provide the neseccary buyancy the magnetic fields (fluxtubes) need to rise through the sun's convection zone up to the chromosphere. There they snap into spicules, releasing plasma and energy. The friction between the charged and neutral particles are responsable for heating up the plasma in and around the spicules which also could explain the increased tempature from the transition region (region between chromosphere and corona).

Zonnekijkdag 2 juli in Moment Averbode

Op zondag 2 juli kan je in Het Moment te Averbode terecht om naar de zon te kijken. Met speciale filters en telescopen kun je zelf de zon op een veilige manier ontdekken. Leer meer over zonnevlekken en wie weet zie je zelf wel een zonnevlam. Leden van sterrenclub Helios zullen in de namiddag aanwezig en zullen graag een woordje uitleg geven.
Klik hier voor link naar zonnekijkdag.