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).
Testing out a cheap 500mm Russian Maksutov telelens.
Shot comet C/2017 T2 (PanSTARRS) for the city center again.
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.
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A penumbral lunar eclipse is hard to see, as the moon is only a bit fainter. I shot this from the second floor balcony in downtown Almere with a Canon EOS Ra, Canon EF300mm, 2x extender (f=600mm, F/10), 1/6400s at ISO800.
Observed the Quadrantid meteor shower from Public Observatory Bussloo in the company of 3 friends. Conditions were not ideal with lots of clouds. Nevertheless we saw some pretty good numbers of meteors. A few brighter ones were captured by the Canon 8mm fisheye
Moon and Venus shot from my balcony with Canon EOS 6Dii, Sigma 50mm ART @f5.6, ISO800.
Planned my holiday to La Palma (the Canary Islands) as to coincide with the Mercury transit. The weather was very sunny, but incredibly windy. I could only observe the start of the transit as the seeing grew worse and worse every minute. In fact the observatory on the Roque de los Muchachos issued a storm warning. I shot the transit from start to finish but only the images from the first 30 minutes were usable.
All images where shot with a Canon EOS 70D, paired with a Canon EF 300/4 @f/10 and Extender 2x-A, ISO125, 1/6400s.
The evening started cloudy, but at maximum eclipse the moon became visible in gaps in the clouds. Not a lot of visitors (10) compared to last years’ 500, but nevertheless another nice eclipse.
