Shot the partial lunar eclipse through the open door as my balcony is pretty wobbly. After one hour the moon hid behind the clouds.
Solar cycle 25 is on it’s way and looks promising.
De-orbit burn and fuel dump of the Centaur rocket that launched Landsat 9.
Conditions were not very favorable but we managed to see a number of Perseids on the night of August 11/12. When cirrus took over we had a look at Jupiter and Saturn with the Celestron C14. Although very low in the sky (max. 25°) both planets looked awesome. Took a 30s movie with a Canon EOS R dslr. The best 20% of frames was used for the image below.
The following night (12/13) conditions were better and we saw more meteors than the previous night. However, no fireballs were seen. Comparing the number of meteors to last year, we found the activity disappointing. A few days later (14/8, between 06-09UT) an outburst was seen in the USA and Canada with a ZHR of 130 ±20.
Following some fierce thunderstorms, the skies cleared and a nice NLC display became visible. Silvery clouds from west to north-east up to a height of 60 degrees.
A small group of volunteers gathered at Public Observatory Bussloo to observe the partial solar eclipse under near perfect conditions.
After checking the north-western horizon every night, noctilucent clouds finally appear.
Still in lockdown and not allowed to go out at night (curfew). My balcony has only limited views to the south, so there’s not much choice in objects to image. And with unusual amounts of snow on the ground the skies are even worse than the usual Bortle 8/9, but the Optolong L-eXtreme filter is a powerful tool.
