Nova Del 2013 was easily visible with the naked eye at magnitude 5.0, notwithstanding moonlight and high clouds. Humidity was extreme; within 10 minutes of setting up, dew started to build up on the outside of the hood.
22.25UT, Canon EOS 5DII(mod.), EF135/2L @F2.8, ISO1250, 8x30s, Vixen Polarie.
Koen, Lars and I visited the first ever Sonisphere festival in France. We left Holland on friday morning and arrived at the entrance of the parking lot after 5.5 hours of roadworks and traffic jams. We parked on a windy and sandy waste land, and had to walk 45 minutes with our tents, sleeping bags and other stuff before we arrived at the entrance to the campsite. The campsite was a parking lot next to the snowhall with lots of stone, gravel and, again, sand. Not ideal for pitching a tent, but we didn’t get to sleep much anyway. The festival site itself is also an old parking lot with two stages opposite one and another.
Friday night was Slipknot night. Nice surprise was Airbourne; an Australian rock band. Main headliners on Saturday were the Big 4; Anthrax, Slayer, Megadeth and Metallica. The 2.5 hours long Metallica show with the usual amount of flames and fireworks was the perfect end to a nice festival.
Our annual visit to Europe’s largest astronomy fair; toys for boys. Less visitors than last year, and also a number of vendors that didn’t show up this year. I would have loved to see the new AstroTrack GEM. Nevertheless we had a very good time. We checked out different solar telescopes. Clear winners were the double-stacked scopes.
