Testing out a cheap 500mm Russian Maksutov telelens.
2020-05-21, Venus & Mercury.
Category Archives: Astrophotography
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 reading2020-04-03, Venus and M45.
2020-01-10, penumbral lunar eclipse.
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.
2020-01-03, Quadrantids.
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
2019-12-30, Moon and Venus.
Moon and Venus shot from my balcony with Canon EOS 6Dii, Sigma 50mm ART @f5.6, ISO800.
2019-11-11, Mercury transit.
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.
2019-07-11, NLC’s.
A minor display of nlc’s, visible from and through my bedroom window.
2019-07-21, bright NLC’s.
Extremely bright and extensive NLC display. At the start, NLC’s were visible in the south at 45 degrees.
