Open star cluster night from the backyard

This evening I came home under clear skies! Sat24/Astroforecast however predicted non-optimal atmospheric conditions: around 22.00hrs the seeing quality would drastically decrease. So I put the 200mm Newton outside to let her cool down. After installing, balancing and aligning the telescope I started the observation session:
First I had to look at Venus (for the 1st time ever) with my 5mm UO Ortho in the 90mmF10: nice view! It was not good for my nightvision, but what the heck: I never saw Venus before in a telescope. So things started out ok. After that the deepsky session started under fair/bad seeing conditions):
M42 on 47x (with the 21mm Hyperion) was a joy, the trapezium was clearly visible. M42 did not show sharp details which indicated seeing conditions were bad.
M43 on 47x was only visible periphery (and I'm sure I've seen M43 many times directly from my backyard!).
NGC2232: a simple open cluster at 47x. It looks like it has 2 arms with a central bright start in the centre. No background stars visible, also not with periphery looking.
NGC2250: a small open cluster, best visible at 31x (with 2" Astro-tech Titan). I can barely see it. It looks like it is not a star-cluster at all. No background stars visible. This observation is doubtful (it is also a magn. 8.9 object).
NGC2286: a lot of faint stars of almost the same magnitude are visible at 31x. By looking periphery more and more background stars become visible.
Do 25: nice open cluster. Many stars of different magnitudes visible at 31x.
NGC2301: nice open cluster at 47x. It looks like a flattened V. Many small groups of stars are also visible.
And after that some Messiers:
M50: Open star cluster with diverted groups of stars. Best visible at 47x.
M48: Open star cluster with regularly placed stars of almost the same magnitude. Best visible at 47x.
M67: Small open star cluster, just on the edge of direct vision on 47x.
M44: Beautiful big open star cluster, just fits my field of view at 31x.
M44: Beautiful open star cluster. Just fits my field of vision at 31x. Foregroundstars have all almost the same magnitude and are equally divided throughout the star cluster. By looking periphery background stars become visible.
M35: Beautiful open cluster with many stars. Just fits my field of vision at 47x. By looking periphery more and more background stars become visible.
And some other objects:
CR89: nice open star cluster, just fits my field of vision at 31x. Foregroundstars are all almost the same magnitude.
NGC2169: Very small open cluster. Best visible at 47x. Looks like some sort of "paralellogram".
NGC1746: Big open star cluster with faint stars of almost the same magnitude. Best vision at 31x.
Then more and more fog came......I decided to put my telescope indoors again and after that everything fogged up.
But at the end: a nice open star cluster night!

Death Star Canteen

Walk in "de Reuselse Moeren"

This is a view from the birdwatching hut on one of the lakes.








Here's a nice view on the "Reuselse hei".







And here's a birch tree that has been heavily damaged by (we think) a bird looking for insects......

M1 Crab Nebula

I am very delighted that Skywatcher included my M1 Crab Nebula picture on their website: see http://www.skywatchertelescope.net/swtinc/gallery_view.php?id=297

Soupflying 2009

Last weekend we had the so-called "soup-flying" with aeroclub Bladel. It was rather cold, therefore we had the hot soup. The airplanes were fitted with skis for this special occasion!






Here the Piper is landing on its skies.







And here it is safely on the snow again.

New years concert Sirena Brassband

NGC2683 Ufo Galaxy

In the center is NGC2683, called the Ufo Galaxy. It is a magn. 10.6 object I photographed last night. It is at a distance of 16.000k ly from us. This is a stack of 22x10min ISO800 autoguided (totalling 3hr40min). It was a very challenging object to photograph. At the end of the session my telescope was totally covered with ice.



This is a cropped version after extensive postprocessing.....









And with a lot of work I could also extract a very gaint background galaxy. I'm still investigating which one it is and what it's magnitude is.