The 4 years of solar eclipses (2019-2022) – summary

Partial solar eclipse of October 25, 2022

As an eclipse chaser, I try to conduct as many professional observations as possible from every eclipse. Practically, I miss some of them because of a lack of funds or, at the very least, decent webcams in the areas where they occur. Last, my scientific conundrum isn’t covered by anyone who attends on-site. Therefore, the … Read more

Shall we trust Stellarium Web or Stellarium App?

Mercury and Saturn occultation 2037

Stellarium is a free open-source planetarium, which can be used in different ways. The primary software is dedicated to your computer, but you can still work with Stellarium by using it both via a web application (Stellarium-web.org) as well as an Android application (Stellarium Mobile). Within this second one, there are also another two ways … Read more

The most unique astronomical events you shouldn’t miss in the 2021-2030 decade

Moon Venus Mars and Milky Way 2029

Recently we have entered the new decade 2021-2030. This is a good time to take a look at what major astronomical events will occur throughout this time. I don’t mean typical celestial events, as known from a vast majority of astronomical calendars issued usually on a yearly basis. I would like to take a deep … Read more

Rendering the Heywhatsthat.com horizon in Stellarium

Rendering Heywhatsthat.com horizon in Stellarium

I am very excited to announce to you a brand new tool, which has been developed just after the newest Stellarium edition was released. I mean the Stellarium version 0.2 onwards, which is the reach of new features. One of them is the possibility of loading the polygonal type of horizon, known by many of … Read more

Venus near Antares – understanding the great Venus orbit cycle, part 2

Venus near Antares every 8 years

This is the second part of the article, explaining the great Venus orbit cycle, which repeats on average every 3159-3160 years. Reminding the basic mechanism it’s exactly 395 8-year cycles, where the planet back pretty much to the same place at the same time in the Sky, except the situation, where this moment in its … Read more

Venus and the Pleiades together on the sky – understanding the great Venus orbit cycle, part 1

Venus and Pleiades every 8 years

The biggest celestial event in April 2020 was definitely the meeting between our closest planet Venus and one of the most renowned open star clusters – the Pleiades. The phenomenon was interesting due to its rarity. Throughout our life it will happen every 8 years, but what’s next? This article brings you not only the … Read more

H-Alpha filter in an exceptional observations of solar phenomena

Mercury in H alpha near Sun

In this short post, I would like to share with you my ideas, on how can we use the Hydrogen-alpha filter for solar observations during exceptional situations. The situations, that I am going to take into account are mostly solar eclipses, but also internal planet transits.  We have less than 2 months to Mercury transit … Read more

How to make the custom Stellarium landscape using Street View?

Street View in Stellarium

If you like watching the night sky, you must have been using at least one of the stargazing (night sky) apps or software. Mustn’t you? One of the most popular software, which is both easy to use and contains most of the relevant stuff for night observers is Stellarium. The current version of this program … Read more