A short session from 02.00 – 04.00 from my observing site. The clouds made for some nice mood pictures. And noctilucent clouds were present as well.
2020-07-13, comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE)
2020-07-12, comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) – updated
Another mostly clear night albeit with a strong wind. Before heading to to observing site, I was able to see the comet through my bedroomwindow. Upon arrival at the site I had to use the car to shield the equipment from the strong wind. The comet’s tail is becoming more and more prominent. An hour before dawn noctilucent clouds appeared again.
Through my bedroomwindow
2020-07-11, C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE)
After days filled with rain, the skies finally cleared. Upon arrival at my observing site a big dark cloud obscured the comet but it’s bright tail gave away the location. What a sight! The night concluded with a nice display of noctilucent clouds.
2020-07-07, comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE)
Better conditions than yesterday. With the wind almost gone and a much more transparant sky the comet was easily visible with the naked eye.
2020-07-06, comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE)
Despite brutal conditions (strong wind and rain), I was successful in imaging comet NEOWISE. A 5 minute gap in the clouds was sufficient to take 27 exposures (1s at ISO800) with a 135mm mounted on a tripod.
2020-06-19, Lunar occulation of Venus.
Shot from Public Observatory Bussloo, the Netherlands with a Canon EOS R and Televue Powermate 4x using the observatories’ Celestron Edge HD1400. Unfortunately, the seeiing was as we are used to, very poor. This video clip is 8x the actual speed of the event.
2020-05-30, Crew Dragon flyby
A couple of minutes after the Internation Space Station, the Crew Dragon followed in the same orbit. Although I did not see the Crew Dragon, the camera (Canon EOS R and Sigma 135mm/F1.8 ART) recorded the flyby very low over the horizon. Individual images from this movie were stacked to show the Crew Dragon (the trail at the bottom of the image).
2020-05-21, Venus & Mercury.
Testing out a cheap 500mm Russian Maksutov telelens.
2020-05-20, C/2017 T2 (PanSTARRS)
Shot comet C/2017 T2 (PanSTARRS) for the city center again.
2020-04, comets from city center.
Tried to image a couple of comets from my parents’ backyard, a 5 minute walk from my own apartment. With over 200,000 inhabitants the light pollution in the city of Almere is huge. Naked eye limit is approximately magnitude +4, so visual observations are limited to the moon and planets. Nevertheless I was succesvol in imaging the currently visible comets: C/2017 T2 (PANSTARRS), C/2019 Y1 (ATLAS) and C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS). Equipment used was a William Optics Star 71 telescope (71mm, f=348mm) and EOS R camera mounted on a Rainbow Astro RST-135 mount. Also tried the new software for the Staraid autoguider with the new option guiding on objects like comets. For the last images I installed my good old IDAS Light Pollution Suppression filter inside the telescope.
Continue reading